Quantifying dynamic, complex vocal sequences emitted by freely interacting mice
Date
2020
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Animals rely on social communication to find mates, establish dominance, and coordinate group behavior. The house mouse, Mus musculus, emits a series of sequential vocal signals to communicate. Because the majority of mouse vocal signals are ultrasonic and undetectable to humans, a microphone array is necessary for localizing and accurately attributing vocal signals to specific mice in a social setting. Using a microphone array system, we recorded the vocalizations and social behavior from 11 groups of adult mice, each consisting of two females and two males. Mice in each group were allowed to freely interact for five hours. We observed that distinct types of individual calls emerge as male mice perform specific social actions, and that the signals consequently affect the behavior of a social partner. There is, however, a lack of detailed knowledge about the sequential structure of vocal signals and their relation to distinct behaviors. Here, we thoroughly characterize the structure and context in which sequentially emitted vocal signals, attributed to specific individual animals, are produced during innate behaviors. Strikingly, we showed that the sequences contain signals with opposite acoustic structures when emitted by mice in aggressive and non-aggressive roles of a social behavior. This provides direct evidence that social partners vocally interact in sequential arrangements and that distinct combinations of vocal signals depend on the behavior of the vocalizer. These findings yield novel characteristics of mouse communication patterns, which will ultimately lead to better understanding of the neural basis of social communication and innovative treatments for communication disorders.
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Keywords
Interaction, Mice, Sequences, Vocalizations