Fernando Nottebohm
Fernando Nottebohm ( born 1940 in Buenos Aires, Argentina ) is an Argentine- American neurobiologist and ethologist. He is a professor at Rockefeller University in New York City, New York.
Life
Nottebohm grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on. He earned a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1962 and 1967, a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California. Since 1967 it belongs to the faculty in 1971, he was Associate Professor and he is since 1976 full professor at the Rockefeller University in New York City, New York. Part of the University Field Research Center for Ethology and Ecology in Millbrook, Dutchess County, New York, which conducts Nottebohm.
Work
Nottebohm's work includes both field studies of bird song as well as molecular and cell biological studies of brain function. Nottebohm and colleagues discovered that some songbirds control of the vocal function is concentrated on one side of the central and peripheral nervous system and that seasonal changes in specific nuclei of the possibility of learning certain " verses " is based. Nottebohm could explain some of the complex hormonal and physiological learning mechanisms that have similarities to the language acquisition in humans.
Nottebohm showed that in adult vertebrates ( Kanarengirlitz ) during the acquisition of singing a replacement of neurons in the adult brain takes place, what mechanisms and regulation underlie the replacement and that neural stem cells are involved. Possible future applications of the research results are used in the treatment of brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases in humans.
Nottebohm studies using partially transgenic songbirds.