Auditory cues

…tactile, olfactory, and visual cues. We compared place cell behaviour un

This study was undertaken to assess sex differences in the vicarious learning magnitude by exploiting an aversive paradigm in adult mice. Mouse observers were individually subjected to an observational compartment next to the training compartment wherein three demonstrators received 1)a daily 30-min presentation of vanilla odors for 3 consecutive days; or 2)3-days of 30-min vanilla odors contingent on the delivery of 15 pseudo-randomly-arranged footshocks (0.5 mA, 2 s in duration per shock). Vanilla odors-induced freezing response (FR) was used to indicate observers’ vicarious learning magnitu

In this talk I’ll discuss our recent work on how visual and auditory cues to space are integrated as we move. There are at least 3 reasons why this turns out to be a difficult problem for the brain to solve (and us to understand!). First, vision and hearing start off in different coordinates (eye-centred vs head-centred), so they need a common reference frame in which to communicate. By preventing eye and head movements, this problem has been neatly sidestepped in the literature, yet self-movement is the norm. Second, self-movement creates visual and auditory image motion. Correct interpretati

…the interaction between sensory cues and motor activity, using behavioral manipulations and neurophysiological recordings from pairs of awake, duetting wrens. I will show evidence that auditory cues link the brains of the wr

Using sounds for social interactions is common across many taxa. Humans engaged in conversation, for example, take rapid turns to go back and forth. This ability to act upon sensory information to generate a desired motor output is a fundamental feature of animal behavior. How the brain enables such flexible sensorimotor transformations, for example during vocal interactions, is a central question in neuroscience. Seeking a rodent model to fill this niche, we are investigating neural mechanisms of vocal interaction in Alston’s singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina) – a neotropical rodent native to