Wan-chun Liu, Assistant Professor of Psychology, along with collaborators Dmitriy Aronov (Columbia University) and Atsushi Miyanohara (UCSD) have received a two-year award of $155,000 for their project Use of optogenetics to identify the effect of social interaction on the development of vocal learning circuits.
Optogenetics involves genetic manipulation which provides neurons with light sensitive activity. This project will create two lines of optogenetic songbirds allowing external control of gene expression related to learning of songs. In addition it will construct a computer tracking facility to monitor the social interaction of the birds as they learn songs from their parents. The research will explore the influence of social interaction on learning in songbirds.