Andrew Bahle, Ph.D.

Andrew Bahle is a postdoctoral fellow at the NYU Langone Neuroscience Institute in the lab of Dr. Michael Long. He earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Michale Fee. He also holds a B.S. in neuroscience and a B.M. in music performance from the University of Michigan. Bahle’s primary research interest is understanding how the brain coordinates complex, planned, and improvised actions during social interactions.

During his Ph.D. research, Bahle contributed to the development of new unsupervised learning techniques for neural data analysis and studied the neural mechanisms involved in the formation of auditory memories critical for song imitation in zebra finches. Using in vivo electrophysiology and optical recordings, he recorded neural activity in juvenile birds as they formed memories of the songs they later imitate. From this data, he then formulated and tested a mechanistic hypothesis for how song memories are stored using focal brain cooling. In the Long lab, Bahle is investigating the neural control of vocalizations in budgerigars, a small species of parrot. His goal is to understand how vocal flexibility arises from a small network of interconnected brain regions and to explore the limits of avian vocal abilities.