A look inside the Comparative Bioacoustics Laboratory: Mousing around

Deep in the basement of the Psychology building at the University at Buffalo, some tenacious researchers are attempting to unravel the mysteries of animal communication. The laboratory mouse is the most recent creature of interest for the Dent Lab. Mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations with many similarities to human speech. That, and the fact that laboratories around the world are using genetically modified mice to understand more about the contributions of various genes on diseases, has made many want to understand more about the mouse’s umwelt. In our laboratory, we focus on mouse bioacoustics. We record vocalizations produced by mice following different types of social encounters. We present these vocalizations and other stimuli to determine various choices by the mice in traditional preference experiments. Finally, most of our experiments involve operant conditioning to determine what mice perceive. In our tightly controlled psychoacoustic experiments, mice are trained to nose poke to tell us what they can detect, discriminate, and categorize. We have used these methods to compare the effects of age, sex, strain, and noise on hearing acuity. Through this combination of experiments, we are beginning to understand the bioacoustics of mice and other animals. [Work supported by NIH AG081747.]