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Related Experiment Video

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Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

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The Temporal Association Cortex Plays a Key Role in Auditory-Driven Maternal Plasticity.

Gen-Ichi Tasaka¹, Libi Feigin¹, Ido Maor¹

¹Department of Neurobiology, The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.

|May 31, 2020

Summary

Motherhood alters brain responses to ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs). The temporal association cortex (TeA) in mothers shows enhanced processing of pup calls, crucial for maternal bonding and care.

Keywords:

TRAP auditory cortex motherhood neuropixels plasticity rabies tracing temporal association cortex ultra sonic vocalizations

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Maternal Behavior Research
Auditory Processing

Background:

Mother-infant bonding is critical for offspring survival.
This bond involves rapid changes in maternal sensory perception and behavior post-birth.
Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are key communication signals between mothers and pups.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how maternal brains represent ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs).
To identify brain regions involved in processing pup calls during motherhood.
To understand the neural mechanisms underlying maternal responsiveness to USVs.

Main Methods:

Utilized a mouse line for temporally controlled genetic access to active neurons.
Employed rabies tracing to map neuronal inputs to the temporal association cortex (TeA).
Used chemogenetics to silence TeA neurons and performed extracellular recordings in awake mice.

Main Results:

The temporal association cortex (TeA) in mothers showed robust responses to USVs.
Primary auditory cortex (A1) was identified as a major input source to TeA.
Silencing TeA impaired maternal preference for pup calls; TeA responses enhanced pup call discriminability in mothers.

Conclusions:

The temporal association cortex (TeA) is crucial for processing pup USVs in mothers.
TeA integrates auditory information and plays a key role in maternal bonding.
Neural plasticity in TeA supports enhanced perception of pup cries during motherhood.