Liu Robert C, Miller Kenneth D, Merzenich Michael M, Schreiner Christoph E
Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Department of Physiology, Box 0444, University of California at San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, California 94143, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2003 Dec;114(6 Pt 1):3412-22. doi: 10.1121/1.1623787.
Auditory neurobiology has benefited significantly from ethological approaches using acoustic communication signals. Developing an ethological model in a genetically manipulable system such as the mouse would enhance the ability to investigate the processing, learning, and recognition of sounds. Characterizing the basic acoustic structure of mouse vocalizations would help lay a foundation for such a future study. Towards this goal, ultrasound vocalizations emitted by isolated mouse pups and pairs of adult males and females have been digitally recorded and examined. Previous work suggests that these calls may have communicative significance. An analysis of the natural variability in their spectral content, median frequency, duration, and repetition period reveals acoustic structure that could be used for recognizing the calls. Other parameters, like the rate of frequency modulation, may also be informative, but have not been examined. Pup isolation calls develop systematically between postnatal day 5 and 12 towards a more stereotyped vocalization--contracting from a wide range of values into narrower clusters of frequency and duration, and shifting from longer to shorter repetition periods. Most significantly, pup isolation and adult encounter calls fall into two distinct spectral and temporal categories, making it possible for a receiver to acoustically distinguish between them, and to potentially categorically perceive them along those dimensions.
听觉神经生物学从使用声学通讯信号的行为学方法中受益匪浅。在诸如小鼠这样可进行基因操作的系统中建立行为学模型，将增强研究声音处理、学习和识别的能力。表征小鼠发声的基本声学结构将有助于为未来的此类研究奠定基础。为实现这一目标，已对隔离的幼鼠以及成年雄鼠和雌鼠发出的超声发声进行了数字记录和检查。先前的研究表明，这些叫声可能具有交流意义。对其频谱内容、中频、持续时间和重复周期的自然变异性进行分析，揭示了可用于识别叫声的声学结构。其他参数，如频率调制率，可能也具有信息价值，但尚未进行研究。幼鼠隔离叫声在出生后第5天到第12天之间系统地发展，朝着更刻板的发声方向变化——从广泛的值收缩到更窄的频率和持续时间簇，并从较长的重复周期转变为较短的重复周期。最显著的是，幼鼠隔离叫声和成年鼠相遇叫声分为两个不同的频谱和时间类别，这使得接收者能够从声学上区分它们，并有可能在这些维度上对它们进行分类感知。
