Ultrasonic vocalization production by socially isolated and experienced mice

Abstract

Mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in a wide variety of social situations, including courtship, investigation, and territorial defense. Although production of USVs is believed to be innate, suggesting mice do not need acoustic experience with conspecifics to produce calls, it is possible mice require experience to emit calls in the proper behavioral context. Male mice require social experience with a female to produce USVs in response to olfactory signals present in dirty bedding (e.g., Nyby et al., 1983), and isolated male mice will produce more USVs than socially experienced males (Keesom et al., 2017), however the influence of social experience on vocal production by female mice has yet to be investigated. The present experiment aimed to determine if social isolation or experience with conspecifics influences the vocal repertoire of adult female CBA/CaJ mice. Mouse calls were recorded during exposure to an unknown male or female mouse and analyzed to determine if isolation or experience affected call number, rate, or spectrotemporal complexity. Chronic social isolation did influence the vocal repertoire, suggesting that social experience plays a role in the production of USVs by female mice.