Symposium
Neuronal circuit mechanisms for auditory cognition: from learning to communication
Chair
Belen Pardi
IPNP, Inserm, Francia
This symposium highlights how the brain actively interprets sound, integrating sensory inputs with prior experience to support learning, memory, and context-dependent behavior. Speakers will showcase cutting-edge research on auditory circuits—from thalamo-cortical pathways shaping perception and memory, to premotor and mirroring neurons in songbirds encoding self-generated vocalizations—revealing how auditory processing underlies communication, emotion, and adaptive behavior. Together, these talks illuminate the neural mechanisms that link hearing to cognition and the ways they can go awry in neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Jan Gründermann
German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Germany
Learning-related Plasticity in the Auditory Thalamus
Jan Gründemann’s talk will summarize his latest research on how auditory circuits encode and adapt to support learning and memory. He will highlight new experimental evidence showing dynamic plasticity in the thalamus and how sensory information is integrated at the neuronal level.
Kishore Kuchibhotla
John Hopkins University, United States of America
The neural basis of flexible auditory learning
Kishore Kuchibhotla will talk about how neural circuits support learning, decision-making, and flexible behavior, particularly how context and brain state influence how memories are expressed. He will highlight findings showing that learning can occur rapidly in auditory cortex even when behavioral changes appear slower, revealing a gap between learning and performance.
Ana Amador
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Departamento de Fisica, Argentina
Neural coding of complex auditory stimuli in songbirds
Ana Amador will talk about how songbirds process and encode complex auditory signals, focusing on how hearing is essential both for learning and maintaining their songs. She will describe how brain circuits in songbirds—particularly the premotor nucleus HVC, which receives input from auditory cortex—contain neurons that respond selectively to the bird’s own song and show “mirroring” activity during both singing and listening. Her recent work highlights how neural activity in HVC synchronizes with the rhythm of song, providing insight into how complex sounds are represented in the brain.
Belén Pardi
IPNP, Inserm, France
Auditory thalamocortical interactions for adaptive perception
Perception is an active process by which the brain makes sense of the surrounding world, continuously integrating sensory signals with internal priors. This process is profoundly affected in major psychiatric disorders, yet the circuit mechanisms that support it—and how they are disrupted in psychosis—remain poorly understood. Recent studies have highlighted the contribution of higher-order sensory thalamo-cortical circuits in processing internal signals. In this talk, I will present our work investigating the role of auditory circuits in memory-related processing and discuss our recent efforts to uncover how their dysfunction may contribute to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.