Male mice emit distinct ultrasonic vocalizations when the female leaves the social interaction arena

Abstract

Adult male mice emit large number of complex ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) when interacting with adult females. Call numbers and call categories differ greatly among inbred mouse strains. Little is known about USV emissions when the social partner departs. To investigate whether call repertoires and call rates are different when the male is interacting with a female and after the removal of the female, we designed a novel male-female social interaction test in which vocalizations were recorded across three phases. During phase 1, the male subject freely interacts with an unfamiliar estrus female mouse in a clean cage for 5 min. During phase 2, the female is removed while the male remains in the cage for 3 min. During phase 3, the same female is returned to the cage to rejoin the male subject mouse for 3 min. C57BL/6J (B6), FVB.129P2-Pde6b(+) Tyr(c-ch)/Ant (FVB), and BTBR T+ tf/J (BTBR) male subject mice were tested in this paradigm. All three strains emitted USVs during their initial interaction with the female partner. When the female was reintroduced in phase 3, numbers of USVs were similar to the initial introductory phase 1. Strain comparisons indicated fewer calls in pairs of BTBR males and stimulus females than in pairs of B6 males and stimulus females and pairs of FVB males and stimulus females. In the absence of the female, all FVB males vocalized, while only one third of B6 males and one third of BTBR males vocalized. In all three strains, changes in call category repertoires were detected after the female was removed. Call categories reverted to the phase 1 pattern when the female was returned in phase 3. Present findings indicate that males of commonly used inbred strains emit USVs when a partner female leaves the testing arena, suggesting that removing a salient social stimulus may be a unique approach to elicit USVs from mice. Our three-phase paradigm may also be useful for studying attention to social cues, and qualitative differences in vocalizations when a social partner is present vs. suddenly absent.

In tribute to Bob Blanchard: Divergent behavioral phenotypes of 16p11.2 deletion mice reared in same-genotype versus mixed-genotype cages

“…Ultrasonic vocalizations detected during the 3-min test were recorded and analyzed using equipment and software from Avisoft (Avisoft Bioacoustics, Berlin, Germany). Behaviors were scored from recorded videos, for durations of social sniffing (nose-tonose sniffing, nose-to-anogenital sniffing, following, and sniffing of other body regions) using Noldus Observer software (Noldus Information Technology, Leesburg, VA, USA), as previously described [69,74].…”

The role of ultrasonic vocalizations in mouse communication

“…First, vocalizations emitted by males are more abundant in the presence of a female or female urine than in the presence of a male or male urine [42,44]. Moreover, there are changes in male-emitted vocalizations depending on the relative location of the male to the female [45–47]. In particular, when the male is close to or mounting the female, the number of vocalizations increases [40,48] and the syllable types change to include a higher proportion of complex, frequency-jump syllables [45,46].…”

Behavioral impact of maternal allergic-asthma in two genetically distinct mouse strains

“…C57 and FVB lines are widely studied inbred strains and known to display typical social and repetitive behaviors (Moy et al, 2007). FVB/Ant mice are a sighted hybrid of the FVB/NJ, characterized by high sociability and low self-grooming, comparable to the C57 strain, and this strain has previously been used as a highly social control strain (Yang et al, 2013). Offspring of OVA- and PBS-treated dams were assessed for changes in sociability at a juvenile age using the reciprocal social interaction task.…”