Distinct patterns of activity within columns of the periaqueductal gray are associated with functionally distinct birdsongs

Abstract

Male songbirds produce female‐directed songs in spring that convey a state of sexual motivation. Many songbirds also sing in fall flocks in affiliative/gregarious contexts in which song is linked to an intrinsic positive affective state. The periaqueductal gray (PAG) in mammals, which is organized into functional columns, integrates information from multiple brain regions and relays this information to vocal motor areas so that an animal emits a vocal signal reflective of its affective state. Here, we test the hypothesis that distinct columns in the songbird PAG play roles in the distinct affective states communicated by sexually motivated and gregarious song. We quantified the numbers of immediate early gene ZENK‐positive cells in 16 PAG subregions in male European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) after singing gregarious or sexually motivated song. Results suggest that distinct PAG columns in songbirds context‐specifically regulate song, agonistic, and courtship behaviors. A second exploratory, functional tract‐tracing study also demonstrated that inputs to the PAG from specific subregions of the medial preoptic nucleus may contribute to gregarious song and behaviors indicative of social dominance. Together, findings suggest that conserved PAG columns and inputs from the preoptic nucleus may play a role in context‐specific vocal and other social behaviors.

The Dorsal Part of the Anterior Tuberal Nucleus Responds to Auditory Stimulation in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

“…Brain areas were identified based on the DAPI staining using the reference atlas for adult zebrafish ( Wullimann et al, 1996 ). In each brain area, the counting areas were positioned over the spots with the highest number of pS6-ir cells ( Zangenehpour and Chaudhuri, 2002 ; Heimovics and Riters, 2006 ; Knight et al, 2012 ; Corrales Parada et al, 2021 ; Morandi-Raikova et al, 2021 ; Polzin et al, 2021 ; Adiletta et al, 2022 ; Protti-Sánchez et al, 2022 ; Asogwa et al, 2023 ). To quantify pS6-ir cells in AT, four sections of both hemispheres were selected from cross sections 136–153 according to the zebrafish atlas ( Wullimann et al, 1996 ).…”