Prior experience with conspecific signals enhances auditory midbrain responsiveness to conspecific vocalizations

There is a long history in neuroethology of investigating how communication signals influence the brain and behavior. It has become increasingly clear that brain areas associated with sensory processing are plastic in adults and that this plasticity is related to reproductive condition. However, the role of communication signal reception in adult auditory plasticity has received relatively little attention. Here, we investigated whether the reception of communication signals (a frog chorus) could enhance the responsiveness of the auditory system to future reception of communication signals (a single male call). We found that animals that had been exposed to 10 days of a male chorus had stronger auditory midbrain immediate early gene expression than animals that had been exposed to 10 days of random tones when tested with 30 min of male calls or 30 min of tones. Our results suggest that exposure to dynamic social stimuli, like frog choruses, may play an important role in shaping the neural and behavioral responses to communication signals.