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Researchers at Duke University have isolated a group of neurons in the brain of a mouse, which are essential for creating the ultrasonic and crackling "songs" produced by a male mouse when it is courting a partner potential.
In fact, they now understand enough these neurons to be able to blackmail a mouse on command or to silence it so that it can not sing, even if it wants to impress a partner.
This level of understanding and control is a vital advance in the ongoing search for mechanisms that allow humans to form speech and other communication sounds. Researchers are largely interested in the production of speech by the brain and have worked with songbirds and mice as models for humans.
We wanted to understand how the mice produce these "love songs", as we call them in the lab. "
Katherine Tschida, who led the research as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Richard Mooney and Fan Wang Laboratories of Duke Neurobiology
For this study, Tschida and her colleagues focused on a part of the middle brain called periaqueductal gray, or PAG, because they knew from past work that it would be a key player in the vocalization circuit, she said. .
Thanks to the technology developed by Wang's laboratory, they were able to locate, isolate and experiment with specific neurons involved in PAG circuits.
By activating the neurons selectively with a light-based method called optogenetics, the researchers discovered that they could immediately blacken a mouse, even if it was alone.
On the other hand, silencing the activity of PAG neurons made the seduction of male mice unable to sing, even though they persisted in all their other courtship behaviors.
Females have been less interested in silent types, which also shows that singing behavior is the key to survival of the mouse.
Both experiments firmly establish that this "stable and distinct population of neurons" is the main channel between behavior and voice communication, Tschida said. The work will appear in the August 7 edition of neuronbut was published early online in mid-June.
"These neurons act as a basis for vocalisation, but they do not determine the individual parts of the song," Tschida said. "It's a" door "for vocalization."
Tschida, who will join the Cornell University faculty next year, said the research would now trace GAP connections to downstream neurons that communicate with the voice box, lungs and mouth, for example. And they will work toward upstream behavioral centers that tell the mouse that there is a female gift and that he should start singing.
The researchers hope to get a more complete idea of why mice produce different syllables in different contexts. "We know they are doing it, but we do not yet know which parts of the brain determine the behavior," Tschida said.
Source:
Duke University
Journal reference:
Tschida, J. et al. (2019) A specialized neuronal circuit triggers social vocalizations in the mouse. neuron. doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.05.025.
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