Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA.
Department of Physiology, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, 94305, USA.
Nat Commun. 2024 Jan 2;15(1):189. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-43794-y.
Vocalizations communicate information indicative of behavioural state across divergent social contexts. Yet, how brain regions actively pattern the acoustic features of context-specific vocal signals remains largely unexplored. The midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG) is a major site for initiating vocalization among mammals, including primates. We show that PAG neurons in a highly vocal fish species (Porichthys notatus) are activated in distinct patterns during agonistic versus courtship calling by males, with few co-activated during a non-vocal behaviour, foraging. Pharmacological manipulations within vocally active PAG, but not hindbrain, sites evoke vocal network output to sonic muscles matching the temporal features of courtship and agonistic calls, showing that a balance of inhibitory and excitatory dynamics is likely necessary for patterning different call types. Collectively, these findings support the hypothesis that vocal species of fish and mammals share functionally comparable PAG nodes that in some species can influence the acoustic structure of social context-specific vocal signals.
发声在不同的社会环境中传递着行为状态的信息。然而，大脑区域如何主动塑造特定于上下文的声音信号的声学特征在很大程度上仍未得到探索。中脑导水管周围灰质（periaqueductal gray，PAG）是哺乳动物（包括灵长类动物）发声的主要部位。我们发现，在一种高度发声的鱼类（Porichthys notatus）中，PAG 神经元在雄性的求偶鸣叫与争斗鸣叫中以不同的模式被激活，而在非发声行为（觅食）中很少有共同激活的神经元。在发声活跃的 PAG 内进行药理学操作，而不是在脑桥内进行操作，会引发与求偶和争斗鸣叫的时间特征相匹配的声肌发声网络输出，表明抑制和兴奋动力学的平衡可能对于塑造不同的叫声类型是必要的。总的来说，这些发现支持了这样一种假设，即鱼类和哺乳动物的发声物种共享功能上可比较的 PAG 节点，在某些物种中，这些节点可以影响特定于社会环境的发声信号的声学结构。
