Henry Greenside, Professor Emeritus  

Henry Greenside

Office Location: 097 Physics Bldg, Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone: +1 919 660 2548
Email Address: hsg@duke.edu
Web Page: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hsg/

Specialties:
Biological physics
Nonlinear dynamics and complex systems

Education:
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1981
MS, Princeton, 1978
M.A., Princeton University, 1977
B.A., Harvard University, 1974

Research Categories: Theoretical Neuroscience

Current projects: Modeling synfire chains that might explain sparse precise robust bursting in, song nucleus HVC. Analyzing changes in spine stability during song learning with the, goal of understanding the tradeoff between modifying synaptic strengths versus, changing connectivity of local networks.

Research Description: After working in nonlinear dynamics and nonequilibrium pattern formation for many years, my research group has begun studying problems in theoretical neurobiology in collaboration with Professor Richard Mooney's experimental group on birdsong at Duke University. The main scientific question we are interested in is how songbirds learn to sing their song, which is a leading experimental paradigm for the broader neurobiology question of how animals learn behaviors that involve sequences of time. My group is interested in problems arising at the cellular and network levels (as opposed to behavioral levels). One example is understanding the origin, mechanism, and eventually the purpose of highly sparse high-frequency bursts of spikes that are observed in the nucleus HVC of songbird brains (this is the first place where auditory information seems to be combined with motor information). A second example is to understand how auditory and motor information are combined, e.g., there are data that suggests that the same group of neurons that instruct the respiratory and syringeal muscles to produce song (again in nucleus HVC) are also involved in recognizing song. A third example is trying to understand changes in anatomy (increases in spine stability) that were recently observed in living brain tissue as a bird learns its song.

Typical Courses Taught:

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. McCreery, K; Greenside, H, The electric field of a uniformly charged cubic shell, American Journal of Physics, vol. 86 no. 1 (January, 2018), pp. 36-44, American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) [doi]  [abs].
  2. Jackson, DP, AJP Reviewers, American Journal of Physics, vol. 84 no. 12 (December, 2016), pp. 901-902, American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) [doi] .
  3. Lim, MX; Greenside, H, The external magnetic field created by the superposition of identical parallel finite solenoids, American Journal of Physics, vol. 84 no. 8 (August, 2016), pp. 606-615, American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) [doi]  [abs].
  4. H. Greenside, Using an Android Tablet with Active Stylus To Create Screencasts Easily and Inexpensively (2014) [available here]  [author's comments].
  5. with Cross, M; Greenside, H, Pattern formation and dynamics in nonequilibrium systems (January, 2009), pp. 1-535, Cambridge University Press [catalogue.asp], [doi]  [abs].

Highlight:
After working in nonlinear dynamics and nonequilibrium pattern formation for many years, my research group has begun studying problems in theoretical neurobiology in collaboration with Professor Richard Mooney's experimental group on birdsong at Duke University. The main scientific question we are interested in is how songbirds learn to sing their song, which is a leading experimental paradigm for the broader neurobiology question of how animals learn behaviors that involve sequences of time. My group is interested in problems arising at the cellular and network levels (as opposed to behavioral levels). One example is understanding the origin, mechanism, and eventually the purpose of highly sparse high-frequency bursts of spikes that are observed in the nucleus HVC of songbird brains (this is the first place where auditory information seems to be combined with motor information). A second example is to understand how auditory and motor information are combined, e.g., there are data that suggests that the same group of neurons that instruct the respiratory and syringeal muscles to produce song (again in nucleus HVC) are also involved in recognizing song. A third example is trying to understand changes in anatomy (increases in spine stability) that were recently observed in living brain tissue as a bird learns its song.

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

    Postdocs Mentored