Call‐specific patterns of neural activation in auditory processing of Richardson’s ground squirrel alarm calls

Freeman, Angela R.; Hare, James F.; Caldwell, Heather K.

doi:10.1002/brb3.1629

Cited by 1 publication

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References 74 publications

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“…Although female sparrows displayed different behavioral responses to predator and conspecific playback, we did not observe differences in ZENK activity in any of our regions of interest. We would typically expect that large differences in behavior would co-occur with differences in neuronal activity in parts of the brain involved in perceiving and responding to threats (e.g., AMV, cHP), which has been seen in other studies (Cross et al, 2013;Zanette et al, 2019;Freeman et al, 2020). Behavioral discrimination of conspecific calls has been positively correlated with activation of specific brain regions in rodents, but not in many other species (Sadananda et al, 2008;Schwarting et al, 2018), and we did not find any significant correlations between ZENK activity in any of our brain regions of interest and movement or feeding behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Effect of estradiol and predator cues on behavior and brain responses of captive female house sparrows (Passer domesticus)

et al. 2023

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The presence of predators can cause major changes in animal behavior, but how this interacts with hormonal state and brain activity is poorly understood. We gave female house sparrows (Passer domesticus) in post-molt condition an estradiol (n = 17) or empty implant (n = 16) for 1 week. Four weeks after implant removal, a time when female sparrows show large differences in neuronal activity to conspecific vs. heterospecific song, we exposed birds to either 30 min of conspecific song or predator calls, and video recorded their behavior. Females were then euthanized, and we examined neuronal activity using the expression of the immediate early gene (IEG) ZENK to identify how the acoustic stimuli affected neuronal activation. We predicted that if female sparrows with estradiol implants reduce neuronal activity in response to predator calls as they do to neutral tones and non-predatory heterospecifics, they would show less fear behavior and a decreased ZENK response in brain regions involved in auditory (e.g., caudomedial mesopallium) and threat perception functions (e.g., medial ventral arcopallium) compared to controls. Conversely, we predicted that if females maintain auditory and/or brain sensitivity towards predator calls, then female sparrows exposed to estradiol would not show any differences in ZENK response regardless of playback type. We found that female sparrows were less active during predator playbacks independent of hormone treatment and spent more time feeding during conspecific playback if they had previously been exposed to estradiol. We observed no effect of hormone or sound treatment on ZENK response in any region of interest. Our results suggest that female songbirds maintain vigilance towards predators even when in breeding condition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Effect of estradiol and predator cues on behavior and brain responses of captive female house sparrows (Passer domesticus)

et al. 2023

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Call‐specific patterns of neural activation in auditory processing of Richardson’s ground squirrel alarm calls

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 1 publication

References 74 publications

Effect of estradiol and predator cues on behavior and brain responses of captive female house sparrows (Passer domesticus)

Effect of estradiol and predator cues on behavior and brain responses of captive female house sparrows (Passer domesticus)

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