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Publications

Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Epublish 8 citations

PubMed: 37429931 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-38051-7

Amplitude modulation pattern of rat distress vocalisations during fear conditioning.

Sci Rep 13(1):11173

Authors: Eugenia Gonzalez-Palomares, Julie Boulanger-Bertolus, Maryne Dupin, Anne-Marie Mouly, Julio C Hechavarria

Affiliations

  • Institute for Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Goethe University, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
  • CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, CMO, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69500, Bron, France.
  • CNRS, INSERM, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon CRNL U1028 UMR5292, CMO, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69500, Bron, France.
  • Institute for Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Goethe University, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Abstract

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.

MeSH

Fear, Conditioning, Psychological

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