Michale S. Fee's research has two main themes: 1) to understand the neural and biophysical mechanisms underlying the generation and learning of complex sequences, and 2) to develop advanced optical and electrical techniques for measurement of brain activity in behaving animals.

Investigator, McGovern Institute; Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Fee lab site

Contact phone: 617 324 0173 fax: 617 452 4119 MIT Bldg 46-5133A email: fee@mit.edu

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.