Sharon Gobes
Associate Professor of Neuroscience
Investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying animal behavior, using songbirds as a model system to study learning and memory.
I am a neurobiologist interested in the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying animal behavior. In the laboratory, we use songbirds to investigate how animals learn and how they acquire memories. A zebra finch male (Taeniopygia guttata) has to learn his song and long call from an adult tutor (often the father) early in development during a sensitive phase. Females do not sing themselves, but do prefer their fathers' song in a choice test and they produce a long call that is not learned. The zebra finch is a great model organism to study a broad range of questions, from social communication to auditory memory and learning of complex motor skills. We approach these questions from different levels, combining molecular techniques, neurophysiological methods and behavioral testing.
I am passionate to understand the role that sleep may or may not play in the formation of memory and to find out whether sleep has a function in the learning process. We recently published a study in Proc. Roy. Soc. B, showing that there is a correlation between neuronal activation during sleep and the strength of song learning in juvenile zebra finches in a region of the brain that likely contains the neural substrate of auditory memory. This opens up the possibility to investigate the role of sleep on the neuronal mechanisms underlying auditory and vocal learning and memory. I teach an advanced course on this topic at Wellesley (NEUR 325: Neuroscience of Sleep, Learning & Memory). In addition, I teach NEUR 100 (Brain, Behavior and Cognition: An Introduction to Neuroscience), NEUR 200 (Neurons, Networks, and Behavior), NEUR 300 (Capstone Seminar in Neuroscience), and a First Year Seminar on Animal Cognition (NEUR 110).
In my spare time I enjoy watching art (not making it) and often visit museums and performances (ballet, theater, classical music). My dose of fresh air I get by venturing out on climbing and mountaineering trips. More exercise comes from yoga and dancing tango and salsa.
I do not have a twitter account yet, but I tweet with my birds – and they usually tweet back.
Education
- B.S., Leiden University
- M.S., Leiden University
- Ph.D., Utrecht University
Current and upcoming courses
This course will build on basic concepts in neuroscience that were introduced in NEUR 100. Current issues will be examined within a broad framework that includes readings in cellular and molecular, cognitive, behavioral, and computational neuroscience. Topics such as sensory systems, learning, memory, and cognition will be covered. The accompanying laboratory is designed to expose students to basic methods and experimental approaches in neuroscience.
This course has a required co-requisite Laboratory - NEUR 200L.
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Group Neuroscience Research
NEUR240
A guided group research project focusing on selected topics from the literature and experimental research methods of neuroscience. Specific topics will vary with each instructor and semester. -
Group Neuroscience Research
NEUR240
A guided group research project focusing on selected topics from the literature and experimental research methods of neuroscience. Specific topics will vary with each instructor and semester. -
Although we spend a major part of our lives sleeping, we understand surprisingly little about sleep and dreaming. In this course we will discuss recent advances made in the field of neuroscience of sleep. Course topics include basic neurobiology of sleep (what is sleep, how is it regulated) as well as specialized discussions of sleep-related learning and memory investigated in different model systems. You will get familiar with these topics through a combination of in-depth review sessions, in-class activities and student presentations of the primary literature. In the laboratory section of this course, we will design and execute a complete, novel, experiment with a small group. We will investigate sleep, learning and memory in different model organisms. The project groups will write up their results in a research article to be submitted to the undergraduate journal "Impulse". Assignments are given to hone presentation and writing skills and to give students the opportunity to explore their favorite topic in more detail. In this Maurer Public Speaking Intensive course, we will build towards presenting in front of a larger audience through multiple public speaking assignments. . This course has a required co-requisite Laboratory - NEUR 325L.