Ana Amador

Adjoint Profesor Independent Researcher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Personal web page Dynamic Systems Laboratory

Research area: Physics of biological systems

• Biomechanics
• Neurophysiology
• Bird song
• Peripheral System
• Non-linear Dynamics

Interests

My research integrates biomechanics, neurophysiology and physiology of the peripheral system to explore motor control of songbirds during singing. In particular, studying what information about behavior is represented at different levels of the motor pathway, and how the information is represented in the activity patterns of individual neurons.

Selected publications

A. Amador, Y. Sanz Perl, G.B. Mindlin and D. Margoliash “Elemental gesture dynamics are encoded by song premotor cortical neurons”. Nature 495: 59-64 (2013).
Commented in “Birds can recognize a model’s reproduction of their own songs” by J.L. Miller, Physics Today 66(5), 16 (2013); “Neuroscience: The units of a song” by Troyer, T.W., Nature , 2013. 495: p.56-7.
Highlighted by Nature’s Editor Editorial Board as one of the best “2013 Editor’s Selections”

A. Amador and D. Margoliash “A mechanism for frequency modulation in songbirds shared with
humans”. Journal of Neuroscience 33(27):11136 –11144 (2013).

A. Amador, F. Goller and G.B. Mindlin, “Frequency modulation during song in a suboscine does not require vocal muscles”. Journal of Neurophysiology 99:2383-2389 (2008).

A. Amador and G.B. Mindlin, “Beyond harmonic sounds in a simple model for birdsong production”. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 18, 043123 (2008).