Former Staff Member
RECENT RESEARCH TOPICS
Vincent Van Meir applies different MRI techniques on songbirds.
Songbirds evolved the remarkable feature of vocal communication, which is very familiar to human speech, language and even music and proofed to be excellent models for brain plasticity. Extensive neuroethological research done in songbirds has yielded significant insights into how a brain perceives species-specific sounds, generates them and does so within different social contexts and developmental stages of life. Manganese Enhanced MRI allows to evaluate functional changes in circuits of the song control system using repeated injections of MnCl2 in HVC. The recent successful application of BOLD fMRI with acoustic stimuli, spanning both a broad range of sensory motor complexity and different levels of cognitive processing, provides a potential path for bridging the gap between the abstract experimental tasks applied in rats and mice and the real-world behaviour of small laboratory animals, even under anaesthetized conditions. Introduction of fMRI in songbirds may establish a firm link between human neuroimaging studies done on auditory, music and language processing and the large body of neuroethological research performed in songbirds over the last halve a century.
Publications
- MRI in small brains displaying extensive plasticity.
A. Van der Linden, V. Van Meir, T. Boumans, C. Poirier and J. Balthazart.
Trends in Neuroscience; 2009 32(5): 257 - 266. - Seasonal rewiring of the songbird brain: an in vivo MRI study.
G. De Groof, M. Verhoye, V. Van Meir, J. Balthazart and A. Van der Linden.
European Journal of NeuroScience; 2008 28:2475-85. - A three-dimensional MRI atlas of the zebra finch brain in stereotaxic coordinates.
C. Poirier, M. Vellema, M. Verhoye, V. Van Meir, J.M. Wild, J. Balthazart, A. Van Der Linden.
Neuroimage. 2008 May 15;41(1):1-6.
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In vivo MR imaging of the seasonal volumetric and functional plasticity of song control nuclei in relation to song output in a female songbird.
V. Van Meir, D. Pavlova, M. Verhoye, R. Pinxten, J. Balthazart, M. Eens, A. Van der Linden.
NeuroImage; 2006: 31:981-92. -
In vivo diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of brain subdivisions and vocal pathways in songbirds.
G. De Groof, M. Verhoye, V. Van Meir, I. Tindemans, A. Leemans, A. Van der Linden.
NeuroImage; 2006 29: 754-63. -
Spatiotemporal properties of the BOLD response in the songbirds' auditory circuit during a variety of listening tasks.
V. Van Meir, T. Boumans, G. De Groof, J. Van Audekerke, A. Smolders, P. Scheunders, J. Sijbers, M. Verhoye, J. Balthazart, A. Van der Linden.
NeuroImage. 2005; 25: 1242-55. -
Dynamic manganese-enhanced MRI signal intensity processing based on nonlinear mixed modeling to study changes in neuronal activity.
J. Serroyen, G. Molenberghs, M. Verhoye, V. Van Meir, A. Van der Linden.
Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Enviromental Statistics. 2005; 10 (2): 1-14. -
Applications of manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI) to image brain plasticity in song birds.
A. Van der Linden, V. Van Meir, I. Tindemans, M. Verhoye, J. Balthazart.
NMR Biomed 2004 17(8): 602-12 -
Differential effects of testosterone on neuronal populations and their connections in a sensorimotor brain nucleus controlling song production in songbirds: a manganese enhanced-Magnetic Resonance Imaging study.
V. Van Meir, , M. Verhoye, M. Eens, A. Absil, J. Balthazart, A. Van der Linden.
Neuroimage. 2004; 21(3): 914-23. -
In vivo manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging reveals connections and functional properties of the songbird vocal control system.
A. Van der Linden, M. Verhoye, V. Van Meir, I. Tindemans, M. Eens, P. Absil, J. Balthazart.
Neuroscience 2002 112(2): 467-74.
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