Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches.
To understand the influence of natural behavioral context on neural activity requires studying awake-behaving animals. Microdrive devices facilitate bridging behavior and physiology to examine neural dynamics across behavioral contexts. Impediments to long-term single unit recordings in awake-behavi...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314795 |
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| author | Daniel J Pollak Daniel M Vahaba Matheus Macedo-Lima Luke Remage-Healey |
| author_facet | Daniel J Pollak Daniel M Vahaba Matheus Macedo-Lima Luke Remage-Healey |
| author_sort | Daniel J Pollak |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | To understand the influence of natural behavioral context on neural activity requires studying awake-behaving animals. Microdrive devices facilitate bridging behavior and physiology to examine neural dynamics across behavioral contexts. Impediments to long-term single unit recordings in awake-behaving animals include tradeoffs between weight, functional flexibility, expense, and fabrication difficulty in microdrive devices. We describe a straightforward and low-cost method to fabricate versatile and lightweight microdrives that remain functional for months in awake-behaving zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). The vocal and gregarious nature of zebra finches provide an opportunity to investigate neural representations of social and behavioral context. Using microdrives, we report how auditory responses in an auditory association region of the pallium are modulated by two naturalistic contexts: self- vs. externally-generated song (behavioral context), and solitary vs. social listening (social context). While auditory neurons exhibited invariance across behavioral contexts, in a social context, response strength and stimulus selectivity were greater in a social condition. We also report stimulus-specific correlates of audition in local field potentials. Using a versatile, lightweight, and accessible microdrive design for small animals, we find that the auditory forebrain represents social but not behavioral context in awake-behaving animals. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-cacd21b6cf354dbb997f162e7e2e1f8b |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-cacd21b6cf354dbb997f162e7e2e1f8b2025-08-20T02:32:56ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01203e031479510.1371/journal.pone.0314795Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches.Daniel J PollakDaniel M VahabaMatheus Macedo-LimaLuke Remage-HealeyTo understand the influence of natural behavioral context on neural activity requires studying awake-behaving animals. Microdrive devices facilitate bridging behavior and physiology to examine neural dynamics across behavioral contexts. Impediments to long-term single unit recordings in awake-behaving animals include tradeoffs between weight, functional flexibility, expense, and fabrication difficulty in microdrive devices. We describe a straightforward and low-cost method to fabricate versatile and lightweight microdrives that remain functional for months in awake-behaving zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). The vocal and gregarious nature of zebra finches provide an opportunity to investigate neural representations of social and behavioral context. Using microdrives, we report how auditory responses in an auditory association region of the pallium are modulated by two naturalistic contexts: self- vs. externally-generated song (behavioral context), and solitary vs. social listening (social context). While auditory neurons exhibited invariance across behavioral contexts, in a social context, response strength and stimulus selectivity were greater in a social condition. We also report stimulus-specific correlates of audition in local field potentials. Using a versatile, lightweight, and accessible microdrive design for small animals, we find that the auditory forebrain represents social but not behavioral context in awake-behaving animals.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314795 |
| spellingShingle | Daniel J Pollak Daniel M Vahaba Matheus Macedo-Lima Luke Remage-Healey Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches. PLoS ONE |
| title | Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches. |
| title_full | Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches. |
| title_fullStr | Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches. |
| title_short | Parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches. |
| title_sort | parsing social context in auditory forebrain of male zebra finches |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314795 |
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