Research Interests

• Fish neurobiology

Bio

Michael Fine is a fish neurobiologist with a background in marine biology and animal behavior. His research has focused on various aspects of acoustic communication in the oyster toadfish, catfish and sciaenid fishes. Highlights of his work include the demonstration that brain areas involved in sound production contain steroid target neurons as in other vertebrates, and the first demonstration of sexual dimorphism in a fish brain. A series of developmental studies on the toadfish sonic neuromuscular system indicate that the sonic muscle fiber increases in number and size for the life of the fish, and the sonic motor neurons, with innervation of the sonic muscles, increase in number and size for seven to eight years. His current work is devoted to following up these findings by determining mechanisms of muscle fiber proliferation and conducting field and laboratory studies on the effect of continuous growth and sexual dimorphism of the swim bladder, sonic muscles and neurons on toadfish sound production.

Select Publications

• Parmentier, E. & Fine, M. L. 2015. Fish sound production and acoustic communication. In: RA Suthers and W Tecumseh Fitch (ed). Vertebrate sound production and communication. Springer Handbook of auditory research SHAR, Springer Verlag, New York. In press.
• Lahiri, S. & Fine, M.L. Explosive development of pectoral muscle fibers in large juvenile blue catfish Ictalurus furcatus. Journal of Fish Biology. On-line.
• Fine, M. L. & Parmentier, E. 2015. Mechanisms of fish sound production. In: Sound communication in fishes, Ladich F (ed). Springer-Verlag, Wien, pp 77-126.
• Mohajer, Y., Ghahramani, Z.N. & Fine, M.L. 2015. Pectoral sound generation in the blue catfish Ictalurus furcatus. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 201: 5-15.
• Ghahramani, Z.N., Mohajer, Y & Fine, M.L. 2014. Developmental variation in sound production in water and air in the blue catfish Ictalurus furcatus. Journal of Experimental Biology 217:4244-4251