Data and code from: A neural hub for holistic courtship displays

• Courtship displays often involve the concerted production of several distinct courtship behaviors. The neural circuits that enable the concerted production of the component behaviors of a courtship display are not well understood. Here we identify a midbrain cell group (A11) that enables male zebra finches to produce their learned songs in concert with various other behaviors, including female-directed orientation, pursuit and calling. Anatomical mapping reveals that A11 is at the center of a complex network including the song premotor nucleus HVC as well as brainstem regions crucial to calling and locomotion. Notably, lesioning A11 terminals in HVC blocked female-directed singing, but did not interfere with female-directed calling, orientation or pursuit. In contrast, lesioning A11 cell bodies strongly reduced and often abolished all female-directed courtship behaviors. However, males with either type of lesion still produced songs when in social isolation. Lastly, imaging calcium-related activity in A11 terminals in HVC showed that during courtship A11 signals HVC about female-directed calls and, during female-directed singing, about the transition from simpler introductory notes to the acoustically more complex syllables that depend intimately on HVC for their production. These results show how a brain region important to reproduction in both birds and mammals enables holistic courtship displays in male zebra finches that include learning songs, calls and other non-vocal behaviors. ... [Read More]

Total Size

111 files (5.06 GB)

Data Citation

• Ben-Tov, M., Duarte, F. & Mooney, R. (2023). Data and code from: A neural hub for holistic courtship displays. Duke Research Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.7924/r4hd80x9b

Creator

• Duarte, Fabiola
• Ben-Tov, Mor
• Mooney, Richard

DOI

• 10.7924/r4hd80x9b

Subject

• Courtship
• Fiber photometry
• Behavioral assessment
• Zebra finch
• Dopamine

Publication Date

• February 24, 2023

ARK

• ark:/87924/r4hd80x9b

Affiliation

• Neurobiology

Publisher

• Duke Research Data Repository

Collection Dates

• 2018 to 2022

Type

• Dataset

Format

• WAV
• MAT
• XLSX
• M
• FIG
• JPG
• YAML
• CSV
• LSM
• CZI
• AVI

Related Materials

• Ben-Tov, M., Duarte, F., & Mooney, R. (2023). A neural hub for holistic courtship displays. Current Biology.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.072

Funding Agency

• Helen Hay Whitney Foundation
• Ruth K. Broad Biomedical Research Foundation
• National Institutes of Health

Grant Number

• R01NS099288
• RF1NS118424

Contact

• Mor Ben-Tov, morbentov@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0283-1724

License

• Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 International

Title

• Data and code from: A neural hub for holistic courtship displays

License

• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Repository

• Duke Research Data Repository