Journal
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 57, Issue 12, Pages 2062-2096Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15957
Keywords
animal models; neurological disorders; neuropharmacology; neuropsychiatric disorders; ultrasound playback
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Mice and rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations to communicate with each other, and understanding these vocalizations is important for both ethological research and biomedical applications. This review provides an updated overview of the translational value of ultrasonic calling behavior in mice and rats, as well as examples of novel approaches and tools for analyzing these vocalizations.
Mice and rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), which may express their arousal and emotional states, to communicate with each other. There is continued scientific effort to better understand the functions of USVs as a central element of the rodent behavioral repertoire. However, studying USVs is not only important because of their ethological relevance, but also because they are widely applied as a behavioral readout in various fields of biomedical research. In mice and rats, a large number of experimental models of brain disorders exist and studying the emission of USVs in these models can provide valuable information about the health status of the animals and the effectiveness of possible interventions, both environmental and pharmacological. This review (i) provides an updated overview of the contexts in which ultrasonic calling behaviour of mice and rats has particularly high translational value, and (ii) gives some examples of novel approaches and tools used for the analysis of USVs in mice and rats, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The relevance of age and sex differences as well as the importance of longitudinal evaluations of calling and non-calling behaviour is also discussed. Finally, the importance of assessing the communicative impact of USVs in the receiver, that is, through playback studies, is highlighted.
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