Meeting Abstract
How individuals vocally interact between, and perceive, each other within a couple are central traits of many vertebrates including humans. In different contexts, tuning between vocal communication and acoustic perception can have a critical role in the success of the couple. Songbirds provide great study models as they communicate using diverse vocalizations, from learned songs to soft calls, and possess defined brain regions specialized in the production and perception of such vocalizations. Likewise, the life stage can affect the vocal communication within couples and although extensive research suggests seasonal or reproductive-dependent changes in neural auditory responses, no study has demonstrated this to date. We report experiments designed to determine whether communication dynamics and neural responses of the auditory area nidocaudal mesopalium (NCM) adjust to the life stage, and if so, if this occurs equally in both sexes. Using wireless electrophysiology and audio transmitters in freely behaving zebra finches we found that females change their auditory responses towards socially relevant stimuli after breeding induction. Within couples, we quantified changes in calling dynamics and local field potential (LFP) activity in NCM. Both, males and females replied vocally stronger towards each other whereas females not only replied faster to their partner after the modification, but also increased their LFP neural response to specific calls. Performing long-term neural and vocal recordings of freely behaving animals while mimicking a natural environmental change, we uncover sex-specific and context-dependent vocal and neural changes that can be of major relevance for understanding general processes of vocal communication and reproduction.
