Acoustic camera system for measuring ultrasound communication in mice

Jumpei Matsumoto; Kouta Kanno; Masahiro Kato; Hiroshi Nishimaru; Tsuyoshi Setogawa; Choijiljav Chinzorig; Tomohiro Shibata; Hisao Nishijo

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104812

Acoustic camera system for measuring ultrasound communication in mice

iScience. 2022 Jul 21;25(8):104812. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104812. eCollection 2022 Aug 19.

Authors

Jumpei Matsumoto^{1

2}, Kouta Kanno³, Masahiro Kato^{4

5}, Hiroshi Nishimaru^{1

2}, Tsuyoshi Setogawa^{1

2}, Choijiljav Chinzorig¹, Tomohiro Shibata⁶, Hisao Nishijo^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of System Emotional Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toyama, Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
² Research Center for Idling Brain Science, University of Toyama, Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
³ Laboratory of Neuroscience, Course of Psychology, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Law, Economics and the Humanities, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima 890-0065, Japan.
⁴ Katou Acoustics Consultant Office, Yokohama 225-0021, Japan.
⁵ Osawa Memorial Institute of Architectural Environmental Engineering, Kanto Gakuin University, Yokohama 236-8501, Japan.
⁶ Department of Human Intelligence Systems, Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu 808-0196, Japan.

Abstract

To investigate biological mechanisms underlying social behaviors and their deficits, social communication via ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in mice has received considerable attention as a powerful experimental model. The advances in sound localization technology have facilitated the analysis of vocal interactions between multiple mice. However, existing sound localization systems are built around distributed-microphone arrays, which require a special recording arena and long processing time. Here, we report a novel acoustic camera system, USVCAM, which enables simpler and faster USV localization and assignment. The system comprises recently developed USV segmentation algorithms with a modification for overlapping vocalizations that results in high accuracy. Using USVCAM, we analyzed USV communications in a conventional home cage, and demonstrated novel vocal interactions in female ICR mice under a resident-intruder paradigm. The extended applicability and usability of USVCAM may facilitate future studies investigating typical and atypical vocal communication and social behaviors, as well as the underlying mechanisms.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Biological sciences research methodologies; Techniques in neuroscience.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.17121275