A fundamental task for the auditory system is to process communication sounds according to their behavioral significance. In many mammalian species, pup calls became more significant for mothers than other conspecific and heterospecific communication sounds. To study the cortical consequences of motherhood on the processing of communication sounds, we recorded neuronal responses in the primary auditory cortex of virgin and mother C57BL/6 mice which had similar ABR thresholds. In mothers, the evoked firing rate in response to pure tones was decreased and the frequency receptive fields were narrower. The responses to pup and adult calls were also reduced but the amount of mutual information (MI) per spike about the pup call’s identity was increased in mother mice. The response latency to pup and adult calls was significantly shorter in mothers. Despite similarly decreased responses to guinea pig whistles, the response latency, and the MI per spike did not differ between virgins and mothers for these heterospecific vocalizations. Noise correlations between cortical recordings were decreased in mothers, suggesting that the firing rate of distant neurons was more independent from each other. Together, these results indicate that in the most commonly used mouse strain for behavioral studies, the discrimination of pup calls by auditory cortex neurons is more efficient during motherhood.

听觉系统的一项基本任务是根据通讯声音的行为重要性对其进行处理。在许多哺乳动物物种中，对母亲而言，幼犬的呼声变得比其他同种和异种通信声音更为重要。为了研究母性对通讯声音处理的皮质影响，我们在原始和具有相同ABR阈值的C57BL / 6母小鼠的初级听觉皮层中记录了神经元反应。在母亲中，对纯音的诱发发声速率降低，频率感受野变窄。对幼崽和成年幼崽的反应也有所减少，但母鼠每个峰值关于幼崽的身份的相互信息（MI）数量增加了。母亲对幼崽和成年呼叫的反应潜伏期明显缩短。尽管对豚鼠口哨的反应减少了类似，但这些异源性发声的反应潜伏期和每个尖峰的MI没有差异。母亲的皮质录音之间的噪声相关性降低，表明远处神经元的放电速率彼此之间更加独立。总之，这些结果表明，在最常用于行为研究的小鼠品系中，听觉皮层神经元对幼犬叫声的辨别在孕产期间更为有效。这表明远处神经元的放电速率彼此之间更加独立。总之，这些结果表明，在最常用于行为研究的小鼠品系中，听觉皮层神经元对幼犬叫声的辨别在孕产期间更为有效。这表明远处神经元的放电速率彼此之间更加独立。总之，这些结果表明，在最常用于行为研究的小鼠品系中，听觉皮层神经元对幼犬叫声的辨别在孕产期间更为有效。