Enhanced Discriminative Abilities of Auditory Cortex Neurons for Pup Calls Despite Reduced Evoked Responses in C57BL/6 Mother Mice

A fundamental task for the auditory system is to process communication sounds according their behavioral significance. In many mammalian species, pup calls became more significant mothers than other conspecific and heterospecific sounds. To study cortical consequences of motherhood on processing sounds, we recorded neuronal responses in primary cortex virgin mother C57BL/6 mice which had similar ABR thresholds. mothers, evoked firing rate response pure tones was decreased frequency receptive fields were narrower. The adult also reduced but amount mutual information (MI) per spike about call’s identity increased mice. latency significantly shorter mothers. Despite similarly guinea pig whistles, latency, MI did not differ between virgins these vocalizations. Noise correlations recordings suggesting that distant neurons independent from each other. Together, results indicate most commonly used mouse strain studies, discrimination by efficient during motherhood.