CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Aug. 18, 2003—Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, Director of the McGovern Institute at MIT, announced today that Michale S. Fee, an expert in how the brain generates and learns sequences of actions, has been named as an Investigator at the McGovern Institute at MIT, as well as Associate Professor of Neuroscience in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

"Michale's work will make an important contribution to our work here at the McGovern Institute," said Dr. Sharp, "as we seek to advance the understanding of brain functions such as recognition, perception and decision-making."

Michale Fee studies how the brain learns and generates complex sequential behaviors, with a focus on the songbird as a model system. Young songbirds learn their vocalization, a complex sequence of vocal/motor gestures, by listening to a tutor and then practicing their song for several months. Fee is currently trying to understand how circuitry in three forebrain nuclei, RA, HVC and NIf, produce these motor patterns. His lab has recently found neurons in the premotor song control circuit that generate only a single brief burst in the sequence, and may form an explicit representation of time in the brain. Fee is also interested in developing advanced techniques for recording electrical and optical signals from neurons in behaving animals. Recently developed techniques include a 1.5 gram motorized microdrive for chronic recording, an active electrode stabilizer for intracellular recording in awake animals, and a miniature two-photon microscope for intracellular imaging in freely behaving animals.

Fee was named Investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Associate Professor of Systems Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 2003. He received his PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University (1992), and then did postdoctoral work at Bell Laboratories. From 1996-2003, Fee was a member of the Biological Computation Research Department at Bell Laboratories.

About the McGovern Institute at MIT

The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT is a research and teaching institute committed to advancing human understanding and communications. The goal of the McGovern Institute is to investigate and ultimately understand the biological basis of all higher brain function in humans. The McGovern Institute conducts integrated research in neuroscience, genetic and cellular neurobiology, cognitive science, computation, and related areas.

By determining how the brain works, from the level of gene expression in individual neurons to the interrelationships between complex neural networks, the McGovern Institute's efforts work to improve human health, discover the basis of learning and recognition, and enhance education and communication. The McGovern Institute contributes to the most basic knowledge of the fundamental mysteries of human awareness, decisions, and actions.

For more additional information, please go to http://web.mit.edu/mcgovern.

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