Integration of Salient Multimodal Social Signals and Internal Physiological State

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge LA

Investigators

Abstract

Animals perceive their surroundings through many senses simultaneously, which allows them to make appropriate behavioral decisions in different contexts. Most previous research on the link between sensory perception and behavior expression, however, has focused solely on individual sensory systems. This project, performed at Louisiana State University, uses an integrative approach at multiple levels of biological organization to further our understanding of how the brain processes multimodal (visual and acoustic) sensory information, and how it links this perception to behavioral outputs in reproductive contexts. Experiments will be performed in an African cichlid fish, in which brightly-colored dominant males perform visually-conspicuous courtship displays combined with sounds to attract females for spawning. How this multimodal information is used by receptive females remains unexplored. Results of this work will advance our current understanding of the function and evolution of multimodal signaling and perception that is crucial for all species survival and persistence in a changing world. This project will also provide research and training opportunities for women and underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students in an EPSCoR jurisdiction, science web-resources for the public and other research scientists, and curriculum development for undergraduate courses. The goal of this project is to identify and characterize the neural substrates mediating reproductive behavioral decisions based on reception of salient multimodal signals. Capitalizing on previous sensory research in an established African cichlid fish model, Astatotilapia burtoni, this work combines behavioral, cellular, and molecular analyses to advance our understanding of how multimodal (visual and acoustic) signals are represented in the brain of a receiver. Further, it will examine how perception of this salient information is influenced by an animal's reproductive state. Immediate early gene expression will be used as a proxy for neural activation to determine where in the female brain multimodal signals from courting males are processed, and to test whether female reproductive state influences neural activation patterns. Complementary experiments will determine the role of the subpallial forebrain as an integration center for socially-salient multimodal signals and reproductive state. This work combines in vivo electrophysiology and gene expression analyses to test the hypothesis that the ventral telencephalon plays a role in visual-acoustic processing during courtship. Analysis of multimodal responses using these two different techniques in the same brain regions will generate novel measures of both transcriptional and physiological activation to the same contextual information. Results of this work will transform previously outlined behavioral classification schemes of multimodal communication theory and will be used as a framework to advance the field, while simultaneously providing outreach and training opportunities for students from K-12 through college.