Amplitude modulation pattern of rat distress vocalisations during fear conditioning
- In humans, screams have strong amplitude modulations (AM) at 30 to 150 Hz. These AM correspond to the acoustic correlate of perceptual roughness. In bats, distress calls can carry AMs, which elicit heart rate increases in playback experiments. Whether amplitude modulation occurs in fearful vocalisations of other animal species beyond humans and bats remains unknown. Here we analysed the AM pattern of rats’ 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalisations emitted in a fear conditioning task. We found that the number of vocalisations decreases during the presentation of conditioned stimuli. We also observed that AMs do occur in rat 22-kHz vocalisations. AMs are stronger during the presentation of conditioned stimuli, and during escape behaviour compared to freezing. Our results suggest that the presence of AMs in vocalisations emitted could reflect the animal’s internal state of fear related to avoidance behaviour.
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| Author: | Eugenia González PalomaresORCiD, Julie Boulanger BertolusORCiD, Maryne DupinORCiD, Anne-Marie MoulyORCiD, Julio C. Hechavarria-CueriaORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-731629 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.18.524509 |
| Parent Title (English): | bioRxiv |
| Document Type: | Preprint |
| Language: | English |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2023/05/20 |
| Date of first Publication: | 2023/05/20 |
| Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
| Release Date: | 2023/06/13 |
| Issue: | 2023.01.18.524509 |
| Page Number: | 24 |
| HeBIS-PPN: | 509396054 |
| Institutes: | Biowissenschaften |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie |
| Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
| Licence (German): |  Creative Commons - CC BY-NC-ND - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International |
