Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming

  1. Max L Sterling
  2. Ruben Teunisse
  3. Bernhard Englitz  Is a corresponding author
  1. Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands

Abstract

Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) fulfill an important role in communication and navigation in many species. Because of their social and affective significance, rodent USVs are increasingly used as a behavioral measure in neurodevelopmental and neurolinguistic research. Reliably attributing USVs to their emitter during close interactions has emerged as a difficult, key challenge. If addressed, all subsequent analyses gain substantial confidence. We present a hybrid ultrasonic tracking system, HyVL, that synergistically integrates a high-resolution acoustic camera with high-quality ultrasonic microphones. HyVL is the first to achieve millimeter precision (~3.4-4.8mm, 91% assigned) in localizing USVs, ~3x better than other systems, approaching the physical limits (mouse snout ~ 10mm). We analyze mouse courtship interactions and demonstrate that males and females vocalize in starkly different relative spatial positions, and that the fraction of female vocalizations has likely been overestimated previously due to imprecise localization. Further, we find that when two male mice interact with one female, one of the males takes a dominant role in the interaction both in terms of the vocalization rate and the location relative to the female. HyVL substantially improves the precision with which social communication between rodents can be studied. It is also affordable, open-source, easy to set up, can be integrated with existing setups, and reduces the required number of experiments and animals.

Data availability

All code necessary to implement the HyVL system has been deposited at https://github.com/benglitz/HyVL and https://doi.org/10.34973/7kgc-ta72.All data has been made available at https://doi.org/10.34973/7kgc-ta72.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Max L Sterling

    Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Ruben Teunisse

    Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Bernhard Englitz

    Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands
    For correspondence
    englitz@science.ru.nl
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9106-0356

Funding

DCN Internal Grant, Noldus IT

  • Bernhard Englitz

NWO VIDI grant (016.VIDI.189.052)

  • Bernhard Englitz

Technology Hotel Grant, ZonMW (40-43500-98-4141)

  • Bernhard Englitz

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

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All of the animals and experimental procedures were conducted according to the guidelines of the Animal Welfare Body of the Central Animal Facility at the Radboud University. The protocol was approved by the Dutch National Committee CCD (Permit Number: 2017-0041).

Reviewing Editor

  1. Brice Bathellier, CNRS, France

Version history

  1. Received: January 11, 2023
  2. Preprint posted: January 20, 2023 (view preprint)
  3. Accepted: July 25, 2023
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: July 26, 2023 (version 1)
  5. Accepted Manuscript updated: July 27, 2023 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2023, Sterling et al.

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.

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  1. Max L Sterling
  2. Ruben Teunisse
  3. Bernhard Englitz
(2023)
Rodent ultrasonic vocal interaction resolved with millimeter precision using hybrid beamforming
eLife 12:e86126.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.86126

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