Prior experience with conspecific signals enhances auditory midbrain responsiveness to conspecific vocalizations

Gall, Megan D.; Wilczynski, Walter

doi:10.1242/jeb.096883

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Our recent work suggests that experience with social stimuli can also induce plasticity in both the auditory midbrain (Gall and Wilczynski, 2014) and in the auditory periphery by changing response strength to conspecific call frequencies (Gall and Wilczynski, 2015). The current results show that socially induced auditory plasticity extends to facilitating release from forward masking, which may be particularly important in real-world complex acoustic conditions.…”

Section: Forward Masking and Socially Induced Plasticitymentioning

confidence: 49%

The effects of call-like masking diminish after nightly exposure to conspecific choruses in green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea)

Gall

Wilczynski

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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One of the major difficulties encountered by animals that select mates using acoustic signals is discriminating individual calls from the background noise generated by other conspecifics. Reducing the effects of conspecific masking could improve discrimination of individual calls from background noise. We used auditory evoked potentials to investigate the effects of forward masking on the responses to artificial calls in male and female treefrogs (Hyla cinerea), as well as whether hearing advertisement calls over several nights, as happens in natural frog choruses, could modify the effects of masking. We found that response amplitude decreased with decreasing interstimulus interval when the masker was equal in amplitude to the stimulus. We also found evidence of a priming effect, whereby response amplitude at lower masker amplitudes was greater than when the target stimulus was not preceded by a masker. Finally, we found that the effect of masking was diminished by 10 nights of chorus exposure (i.e. responses were stronger to target stimuli), whereas there was no change in response in the control group. Our results show that hearing dynamic social stimuli, such as frog choruses, can alter the responses of the auditory periphery in a way that could enhance the detection of and response to conspecific acoustic communication signals.

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Section: Forward Masking and Socially Induced Plasticitymentioning

confidence: 49%

The effects of call-like masking diminish after nightly exposure to conspecific choruses in green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea)

Gall

Wilczynski

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Exposure to a particular song type for one week enhanced telencephalic responses to novel exemplars of that type in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) [12,13]. Similarly, we recently found that green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) that heard a simulated chorus nightly for 10 days had significantly increased immediate early gene responses to novel conspecific advertisement calls in the auditory midbrain [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Hearing conspecific vocal signals alters peripheral auditory sensitivity

Gall

Wilczynski

2015

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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We investigated whether hearing advertisement calls over several nights, as happens in natural frog choruses, modified the responses of the peripheral auditory system in the green treefrog, Hyla cinerea. Using auditory evoked potentials (AEP), we found that exposure to 10 nights of a simulated male chorus lowered auditory thresholds in males and females, while exposure to random tones had no effect in males, but did result in lower thresholds in females. The threshold change was larger at the lower frequencies stimulating the amphibian papilla than at higher frequencies stimulating the basilar papilla. Suprathreshold responses to tonal stimuli were assessed for two peaks in the AEP recordings. For the peak P1 (assessed for 0.8-1.25 kHz), peak amplitude increased following chorus exposure. For peak P2 (assessed for 2-4 kHz), peak amplitude decreased at frequencies between 2.5 and 4.0 kHz, but remained unaltered at 2.0 kHz. Our results show for the first time, to our knowledge, that hearing dynamic social stimuli, like frog choruses, can alter the responses of the auditory periphery in a way that could enhance the detection of and response to conspecific acoustic communication signals.

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“…This suggests that the differences in response to conspecific and heterospecific songs recorded in MLd are not simply a result of repeated exposure to a particular auditory stimulus. Repeated exposure has been shown to change neural responses in the auditory cortex of rats (Bao et al, 2013), ferrets (Schnupp et al, 2006), and gerbils (Caras & Sanes, 2017), and in the auditory midbrain of mice (Cruces-Solís et al, 2018) and frogs (Gall & Wilczynski, 2014). Instead, the persistence of the differences observed in the MLd of both groups of birds, suggest that these changes may be influenced by the critical period of learning associated with song learning.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory processing in the zebra finch midbrain: single unit responses and effect of rearing experience

Logerot

Smith

Wild

et al. 2020

PeerJ

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In birds the auditory system plays a key role in providing the sensory input used to discriminate between conspecific and heterospecific vocal signals. In those species that are known to learn their vocalizations, for example, songbirds, it is generally considered that this ability arises and is manifest in the forebrain, although there is no a priori reason why brainstem components of the auditory system could not also play an important part. To test this assumption, we used groups of normal reared and cross-fostered zebra finches that had previously been shown in behavioural experiments to reduce their preference for conspecific songs subsequent to cross fostering experience with Bengalese finches, a related species with a distinctly different song. The question we asked, therefore, is whether this experiential change also changes the bias in favour of conspecific song displayed by auditory midbrain units of normally raised zebra finches. By recording the responses of single units in MLd to a variety of zebra finch and Bengalese finch songs in both normally reared and cross-fostered zebra finches, we provide a positive answer to this question. That is, the difference in response to conspecific and heterospecific songs seen in normal reared zebra finches is reduced following cross-fostering. In birds the virtual absence of mammalian-like cortical projections upon auditory brainstem nuclei argues against the interpretation that MLd units change, as observed in the present experiments, as a result of top-down influences on sensory processing. Instead, it appears that MLd units can be influenced significantly by sensory inputs arising directly from a change in auditory experience during development.

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Prior experience with conspecific signals enhances auditory midbrain responsiveness to conspecific vocalizations

Cited by 14 publications

References 70 publications

The effects of call-like masking diminish after nightly exposure to conspecific choruses in green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea)

The effects of call-like masking diminish after nightly exposure to conspecific choruses in green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea)

Hearing conspecific vocal signals alters peripheral auditory sensitivity

Auditory processing in the zebra finch midbrain: single unit responses and effect of rearing experience

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