Many animals communicate with members of their own species using specific sounds. These vocalizations are behaviorally relevant to the animals because they facilitate important behaviors such as mating, maintaining a territory, or finding offspring on return from foraging. When an animal hears one of these behaviorally relevant sounds, it must make an appropriate response based on the information in the sound. To do this, the animal's auditory system must detect, discriminate, and categorize each of the sounds.
The goal of this project is to understand how neurons in the auditory midbrain achieve these tasks. The inferior colliculus is the first site in the ascending auditory system where individual neurons respond selectively to vocalizations but the mechanisms by which they do this are not well understood. Previously recorded vocalizations that were emitted by male mice when they were interacting with females will be presented as stimuli to female mice. Responses of individual neurons in the inferior colliculus will be recorded before and after pharmacological inactivation of inhibitory receptors to test the role of inhibition in shaping responses to vocalizations.
The importance of this research is in understanding the ways in which the brain has evolved to optimally respond to behaviorally relevant signals. This research will increase the understanding of how sound perception helps animals survive. A variety of broader impacts will result from this project, including training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. These students will be trained in neurophysiological techniques and will learn quantitative techniques through the groups active collaborations with mathematicians. This group of collaborators will develop and assess a neuroscience curriculum for middle school students, including units on acoustic communication, the auditory system and hearing loss. Included in this curriculum will be the development and assessment of alternative media methods, such as comics and graphic novels, for teaching about neuroscience.
