Ultrashort-range, high-frequency communication by female mice shapes social interactions.

ABSTRACT: Animals engage in complex social encounters that influence social groups and resource allocation. During these encounters, acoustic signals, used at both short and long ranges, play pivotal roles in regulating the behavior of conspecifics. Mice, for instance, emit ultrasonic vocalizations, signals above the range of human hearing, during close-range social interactions. How these signals shape behavior, however, is unknown due to the difficulty in discerning which mouse in a group is vocalizing. To overcome this impediment, we used an eight-channel microphone array system to determine which mouse emitted individual vocal signals during 30 minutes of unrestrained social interaction between a female and a single male or female conspecific. Females modulated both the timing and context of voc

SUBMITTER: Warren MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7021676 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature