Contextual modulation of sound processing in the central auditory system of bats

The social context of sound plays a crucial role in how we communicate throughout our day-to-day. However, there is still a gap in the literature regarding the modulation of perception of sound with affective content through context. Like many bats, Rousettus aegyptiacus is an auditory specialist, meaning it utilizes echolocation calls for navigation and social communication calls to convey its social state to conspecifics. We performed behavioral and electrophysiological approaches to explore the neural mechanisms underlying the perception of these calls. Our analysis revealed that bats spent more time exploring the known individual than the empty cage and that are attracted to playbacks of distress calls. To investigate the neural basis of these behaviors, we recorded extracellular activity from the auditory cortex (A1) of awake bats as they passively listened to the same call types used in the playback test. We analyzed neural responses in A1 based on various spectral properties of the acoustic stimuli, including call duration, intensity, and bandwidth. Our results revealed distinct selectivity for different call categories in the A1 of Rousettus aegyptiacus. With this research, we continue to build on previous work from our and other labs that aim to understand the mammalian neural mechanisms underlying the auditory processing of socially relevant sounds.