Predator recognition by small fishes can be acquired when chemical alarm cues released from damaged skin (by a predator attack) are paired with a novel stimulus, such as the appearance or odor of a predator. Once learned, fish can extend recognition of risk by generalizing to associate risk with additional stimuli that are similar to the conditioned novel stimulus. Here, we trained zebrafish to associate a novel auditory stimulus with predation risk, and then tested to see if they generalize risk to all sound stimuli or whether the conditioned response is limited to the sound frequency of the conditioning stimulus. We found that zebrafish Danio rerio readily associated risk of predation with Tone 1 (285 Hz), as evidenced by reduction in activity, increased time spent near the substratum and increased shelter use, but fish conditioned to fear Tone 1 completely ignored presentation of a second tone of 762 Hz. These data suggest that generalization does not occur as easily for auditory cues as they do for olfactory and visual cues, perhaps due to differences in the properties of sensory biology or the cognitive mechanisms that process information in different sensory modalities.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104421 | DOI Listing |
J Morphol
January 2025
Department of Zoology, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver, Colorado, USA.
The barn owl is a common research subject in auditory science due to its exceptional capacity for high frequency hearing and superb sound source localization capabilities. Despite longstanding interest in the auditory performance of barn owls, the function of its middle ear has attracted remarkably little attention. Here, we report the middle ear transfer function measured by laser Doppler vibrometry and direct measurements of inner ear pressures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neurosci
January 2025
Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 20742.
Hearing is an active process in which listeners must detect and identify sounds, segregate and discriminate stimulus features, and extract their behavioral relevance. Adaptive changes in sound detection can emerge rapidly, during sudden shifts in acoustic or environmental context, or more slowly as a result of practice. Although we know that context- and learning-dependent changes in the sensitivity of auditory cortical (ACX) neurons support many aspects of perceptual plasticity, the contribution of subcortical auditory regions to this process is less understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimers Dement
December 2024
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Background: Alzheimer's disease is a progressive form of dementia where cognitive capacities deteriorate due to neurodegeneration. Interestingly, Alzheimer's patients exhibit cognitive fluctuations during all stages of the disease. Though it is thought that contextual factors are critical for unlocking these hidden memories, understanding the neural basis of cognitive fluctuations has been hampered due to the lack of behavioral approaches to dissociate memories from contextual-performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Ophthalmol
January 2025
University of Lille, Inserm, CHU Lille, UMR-S 1172 - Lille Neurosciences and Cognition, CNRS, 59000 Lille, France.
Background/objectives: Glaucoma can impact the ability to perform daily life activities such as driving. In such tasks, reaction time is critical to detect hazards. Understanding the modalities that affect response times is thus essential for clinical care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS Comput Biol
January 2025
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.
Characterizing neuronal responses to natural stimuli remains a central goal in sensory neuroscience. In auditory cortical neurons, the stimulus selectivity of elicited spiking activity is summarized by a spectrotemporal receptive field (STRF) that relates neuronal responses to the stimulus spectrogram. Though effective in characterizing primary auditory cortical responses, STRFs of non-primary auditory neurons can be quite intricate, reflecting their mixed selectivity.
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