PD Dr. Michael Pecka

Research focus: Understanding how specific behaviors arise from neural processing is a primary goal of neuroscience. Pioneering research established a minimal-intervention approach for studying natural behavior during ethologically adequate sensory stimulation. Recent methodological and technical advances to study – and modulate – neural activity now provide previously unreachable insights into processing capabilities of neural populations. However, these techniques often required minimalistic experimental conditions, which in turn limited their ecological relevance. Thus, they are prone to underestimate the dimensionality of neuronal processing and limit our understanding of the relevant neural mechanisms. My research vision is to understand neural mechanisms of real-world hearing by combining innovative behavioral paradigms with ecologically relevant context and state-of-the-art techniques. To this end, my research addresses fundamental questions related to mechanisms in neuronal circuits and a functional approach to study sensory processing and decision making under realistic conditions.

Keywords: auditory neuroscience in context, selective listening, spatial representations, decision making, sound localization

GSN Students:

• current: Miguel Bengala
• graduated: Dr. Diana Amaro, Dr. Barbara Beiderbeck
  

Selected publications:

Amaro D., Ferreiro D.N., Grothe B., Pecka M. Source identity shapes spatial preference in primary auditory cortex during active navigation (2021) bioRXiv, under revision, https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.05.425444

Ferreiro D. N.*, Amaro D.*, Schmidtke D., Sobolev A., Gundi P., Belliveau L., Sirota A., Grothe B., Pecka M. Sensory Island Task (SIT): A New Behavioral Paradigm to Study Sensory Perception and Neural Processing in Freely Moving Animals (2020) Frontiers Behav. Neuroscience. *Shared first authorship, https://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2Ffnbeh.2020.576154

Gleiss, H.*,Encke, J.*, Lingner, A., Jennings, T.R., Brosel, S., Kunz, L., Grothe B.*, Pecka, M*°. Cooperative population coding facilitates efficient sound source separability by adaptation to input statistics (2019) Plos Biology. *Shared authorship; °Corresponding author, https://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.3000150

Beiderbeck B., Myoga M.H., Müller N., Callan A.R., Friauf E., Grothe B.*, Pecka M.*° Precisely timed inhibition facilitates action potential firing for spatial coding in the auditory brainstem (2018) Nature Communications 2;9(1):1771; *Shared senior authorship; °Corresponding author, https://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41467-018-04210-y

Pecka M*, Han Y, Sader E, Mrsic-Flogel TD*. Experience-Dependent Specialization of Receptive Field Surround for Selective Coding of Natural Scenes (2014) Neuron. 84:457-469 *Shared corresponding authorship, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.09.010