Tripp Joel A, Raghuraman Keerthana, Bhalla Ritika V, Phelps Steven M
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin.
Current Affiliation: Neuroscience Program, Carleton College.
bioRxiv. 2025 Aug 25:2025.08.25.672212. doi: 10.1101/2025.08.25.672212.
Animal display behaviors, such as advertisement songs, are flashy and attention grabbing by necessity. In order to balance the costs and benefits of such signals, individuals must be able to assess both their own energetic state and their social environment. In this study, we investigated the role of leptin, a hormonal signal of high energy balance, in regulating the vocal advertisement display of Alston's singing mouse (). We manipulated perception of energy balance using exogenous leptin, and social environment through acoustic playback, to ask how internal cues of energy availability are integrated with external social cues that promote singing. We found that both song playback and leptin injection promoted increased song effort. In the absence of song playback, leptin altered amplitude modulation in songs, but did not affect song rate. Additionally, we examined hormone and playback effects on non-vocal behaviors and found that leptin may shift physical activity away from cage exploration and toward wheel running. Finally, we found several positive associations between measures related to high song effort. These results demonstrate that male singing mice use both social context and energy balance to govern their investment in advertisement song and that leptin acts as a mediator of this process.
动物的展示行为，比如求偶鸣叫，必然是引人注目的。为了平衡此类信号的成本与收益，个体必须能够评估自身的能量状态以及社会环境。在本研究中，我们调查了瘦素（一种高能量平衡的激素信号）在调节奥氏鸣鼠（Alston's singing mouse）的发声求偶展示中的作用。我们通过外源性瘦素操控能量平衡的感知，并通过声音回放操控社会环境，以探究能量可利用性的内部线索如何与促进鸣叫的外部社会线索相结合。我们发现，歌曲回放和瘦素注射均促进了鸣叫努力的增加。在没有歌曲回放的情况下，瘦素改变了歌曲中的振幅调制，但不影响鸣叫速率。此外，我们研究了激素和回放对非发声行为的影响，发现瘦素可能会将身体活动从笼内探索转移到转轮跑步上。最后，我们发现与高鸣叫努力相关的测量之间存在若干正相关关系。这些结果表明，雄性鸣鼠利用社会背景和能量平衡来控制其在求偶鸣叫上的投入，并且瘦素在此过程中起到了中介作用。
