Sleep, vocal learning, and the basal ganglia-thalamocortical network

• Applicant: Janie Ondracek, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 574831965

During vocal learning, a juvenile bird transitions from acoustically simple, highly variable “subsongs” to complex and stereotypical adult songs through a process of motor learning. Critically involved in this learning process is a set of interconnected brain areas that make up a basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuit known as the Anterior Forebrain Pathway (AFP). Although these brain areas have been extensively characterized individually during singing, little is known about spontaneous neural dynamics across the intact circuit and during different behavioral states. In this project, we will build from our preliminary work to chronically implant multishank Neuropixels 2.0 probes in the brains of adult and sub-adult male zebra finches to simultaneously record from multiple brain areas across behavioral states. In Aim 1, we will target the brain areas that make up the AFP. For the first time, we will be able to characterize the role of thalamic input on the AFP circuit and observe how the neural dynamics in this circuit change across diverse behavioral states, including sleep and anesthesia, singing and non-singing wakefulness. We aim to identify, among other things, whether the large scale population activity that we observed in our previous work is the result of thalamic input or instead intrinsic to the pallial network. In Aim 2, we will further explore the role of the AFP in combination with a premotor area that is important for vocal learning. By recording from these brain areas, we aim to identify how input from the AFP affects sleep-related bursting activity in the premotor area, and furthermore, to relate the bursting activity to ongoing brain oscillations. The AFP pathway is one of the most heavily studied circuits in the songbird brain, and yet there are still substantial gaps in knowledge related to 1) the role of thalamic input into the AFP and 2) how ongoing network activity emerges as a function of behavioral states. Through this project, we stand to gain a lot of insight into the neural functioning of the songbird brain by recording from large populations of neurons across multiple brain areas and behavioral states.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants