Male mice sing softly into females’ ears to seduce females and take them to the orchard. Females, for their part, choose the most refined sounds and the best songs to reproduce.. This mating ritual, recently discovered by a group of neuroscientists from Duke University (USA), ultrasonic vocalizations of miceKnown for over 30 years, these animals have one unique feature, a specific purpose: to find a mate. And it’s not about pre-designed sounds, change it to fit any context and be more attractive.
This is how the mating ritual works. When the male mouse smells the female’s urine but cannot see it, it sings “more complex and louder songs.” But, When the female is directly in his field of view, the mouse changes its strategy and “sings a simpler, lower-pitched song.”explains the co-author of this article published in the journal limits, Eric Jarvis. The researchers believe this change in behavioral patterns, depending on whether the female is in close proximity, is related to the need to “conserve energy to simultaneously chase and court the female.”
The vocal ability of mice is less than that of birds or humans, but nevertheless, scientists were surprised at the complexity of some of the songs they managed to sing. “Rats generate certain patterns rather than choosing to connect syllables (or notes) at random,” explains Jonathan Chabout, a postdoctoral researcher responsible for experimenting with animals in different social contexts.
But it wasn’t just experiments that researchers did. The team also developed new software to analyze this melodious behavior of mice. Thanks to him, they were able to study the basic dynamics between the notes of a particular song. Some phrases or syllables even came together harmonically and even had a certain tempo. “It was incredible that these songs varied so much depending on the social context, especially since we believed that songs should be innate,” he says.
They prefer good singers.
When it comes to females, they fall in love with the male that shows them the most creativity. “They prefer to spend time with mice who tone complex tones”explains chabout. In fact, their behavior changes according to the song their sexual partner sings, which led the research group to think that each song has its own meaning.
Researchers are already considering The next step in his research, which will be based on seeing which genes and regions of the brain might be acting in this strange behavior. Especially since the researchers were not at all sure how these mice could change their song instead of using established patterns.
Possible applications in human diseases
Continue this line of research may solve many unanswered questions in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) study, given that this developmental disability is related to a deficit in social communication, and that there are likely brain circuits behind it that control learned behavior. These are the same mechanisms that help these mice become natural singers. “We need mouse scientists from all over the world to join us to test the limits of sound learning and plasticity,” insists Jarvis.
Researchers at Duke University presented their findings platform mouse tubea repository created by scientists From the Institut Pasteur in Paris to include all studies of ultrasonic vocalizations in mice.
Stating that this study provides a new way of working for researchers around the world, Chabout insists, “We hope this will help other researchers study this phenomenon.” “The Mouse Song Analyzer and Excel tool we created to analyze songs are available free of charge on the Jarvis lab website,” concludes the researcher.
Reference work: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00076/full
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