The Barn Owl Connectome Project
Our current goal is to reconstruct the complete wiring diagram of local circuits in the barn owl auditory localization pathway. This is a classic model system for studying the neural bases of information processing, plasticity and learning. Our integrative approach combines in vivo electrophysiology, auditory and visual receptive field mapping, tracer injection, immmunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, automated transmission electron microscopy, 3D visualization, computer simulation and bootstrap analysis. We hope to better understand how individual life experience is encoded by changes in wiring patterns, and by extension, to shed light on principles of neural processing that are employed across brain regions and across species.