Vocal development in a Waddington landscape

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Abstract

Vocal development is the adaptive coordination of the vocal apparatus, muscles, the nervous system, and social interaction. Here, we use a quantitative framework based on optimal control theory and Waddington’s landscape metaphor to provide an integrated view of this process. With a biomechanical model of the marmoset monkey vocal apparatus and behavioral developmental data, we show that only the combination of the developing vocal tract, vocal apparatus muscles and nervous system can fully account for the patterns of vocal development. Together, these elements influence the shape of the monkeys’ vocal developmental landscape, tilting, rotating or shifting it in different ways. We can thus use this framework to make quantitative predictions regarding how interfering factors or experimental perturbations can change the landscape within a species or to explain comparative differences in vocal development across species.

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Yayoi Teramoto

Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3419-0351
Daniel Takahashi

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Philip Holmes

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Asif A Ghazanfar

Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States

For correspondence
asifg@princeton.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1960-7470

Funding

National Science Foundation (DMS-1430077)

Philip Holmes

National Institutes of Health (R01NS054898)

Asif A Ghazanfar

James S. McDonnell Foundation (220020238)

Asif A Ghazanfar

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (#1908-15) of Princeton University.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.