email: sawhite@ucla.edu
phone: (310) 794-1888
fax: 310-206-3987
office: 2353 Life Sciences Bldg.
homepage: http://www.physci.ucla.edu/research/white
research interests: Social influences on learning and memory
Research Interests
How do social interactions influence the brain? Our laboratory is interested in how social behaviors affect neuronal plasticity at sites responsible for learning in an Australian songbird, the zebra finch, and in an African cichlid fish. In each species, we study behaviors that are essential for reproductive opportunity-- song-learning in the finch and agonistic interactions in the fish-- and that are mediated by known neural circuits. In the finch, both the learned behavior and its underlying neural structures are sexually dimorphic, and plastic changes in each are limited to a critical developmental period. In the fish, agonistic behaviors occur mainly between males, but neural plasticity occurs in both males and females throughout life. Within this comparative framework, we use behavioral, electrophysiological, and molecular techniques to investigate how social interactions shape gene expression patterns, how these changes modulate neuronal and circuit properties and ultimately, how this constellation of changes sculpts behavior.
Selected Publications
Miller, J.E., Spiteri, E, Condro, M.C., Dosumu-Johnson, R., Geschwind, D.H. and White, S.A.. 2008. Birdsong decreases protein levels of FoxP2, a molecule required for human speech Journal of Neurophysiology 100 2015-2025 .
Teramitsu, I. and White, S.A.. 2008. Motor learning: The FoxP2 Puzzle Piece Current Biology R335-337- .
Miller, J.E. and White, S.A.. 2007. The sleeping bird gets the song. Focus on: "HVC neural sleep activity increases with development and parallels nightly changes in song behavior" Journal of Neurophysiology 98 3-4 .
Teramitsu I & White SA. 2006. FoxP2 regulation during undirected singing in adult songbirds Journal of Neuroscience 26 7390-7394 .
White, S.A., Fisher, S.E., Geschwind, D.H., Scharff, C. and Holy, T.E.. 2006. Singing mice and songbirds: animal models for FOXP2 function and dysfunction in human speech Journal of Neuroscience 26 10376-10379 .
Poopatanapong, A., Teramitsu, I., Byun, J.S., Vician, L.J., Herschman, H.R. & White, S.A.. 2006. Singing, but not seizure induces Synaptoagmin IV in zebra finch song cirguit nuclei Journal of Neurobiology 1613-1629 .
Nilson, P.C., Teramitsu, I., and White, S.A.. 2005. Caudal thoracic air sac cannulation in zebra finches for isoflurane anesthesia Journal of Neuroscience Methods 143 107-115 .
Teramitsu, I., Kudo, L.C., London, S.E., Geschwind, D.H., and White, S.A.. 2004. Parallel FoxP1 and FoxP2 expression in human and songbird brain predicts functional interaction Journal of Neuroscience 24 3152-3163 .
Reiner, A., Perkel, D., Bruce, L., Butler, A., Csillag, A., Kuenzel, W., Medina, L., Paxinos, G., Powers, A., Shimisu, T., Striedter, G., Wild, M., Ball, G., Durand, S., Gunturkun, O., Lee, D., Mello, C., White, S.A., Hough, G., Kubikova, L, Smulders, T., Wada, K., Dugas-Ford, J., Husband, S., Yamamoto, K., Yu, J., Siang, C., Jarvis, E.,. 2004. The avian brain nomenclature forum: terminology for a new century in comparative neuroanatomy Journal of Comparative Neurology 473 1-6 .
Scharff, C., and White, S.A.. 2004. Genetic components of vocal learning In: The Behavioral Neurobiology of Birdsong (ed. H. Philip Zeigler and Peter Marler) 1016 325-347 (Annals of the New York Academy of Science, ) .