RESARCH INTERESTS

• Dynamical systems theory

• Biophysics

• Computational neuroscience

• Complex systems

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

The goal of our research is  to understand the mechanisms involved in the generation of complex sounds, which are commonly found in birdsong and to characterize the role of the peripheral system in this process. By combining techniques from nonlinear dynamics, biomechanics and experimental tecniques, we aim at unveiling which part of the complexity in birdsong is associated to complex neural instructions, which part is associated to the interaction between a nervous system and a nonlinear device, and the dynamical origin of some physiological instructions driving the vocal organ.

For a more detailed reading see the article in Scholarpedia.

The pressure patterns responsible for the vocalizations in singing canaries show a remarkable degree of regularity. However, this phenomena emerges from the interaction of thousands of neurons. Recently we showed that pressure patterns in singing canaries can be well approximated by subharmonic solutions of a simple nonlinear model. This raises the question of how the activity of thousands of nonlinear units give rise to a rather simple, low dimensional macroscopic behaviour. Recent works by Ott and Strogatz allow to make a connection between our phenomenological models and a microscopic picture based on excitable phase oscillators. This suggests a theoretical approach to the dimensional collapse discussed before and at the same time it motivates the study of biologically inspired dynamical questions.