Diana King, Week 2, Experiments and Exploring



I have been continuing to measure the pup call but this week I have finally started to find some consistencies between ages. I am optimistic that this means something and will hold true throughout the other samples. Nevertheless, I graphed the data and recorded the average pup call of p3, p5 and p8 ages. This will help determine how the mother is recognizing the USVs (ultrasonic vocalizations).

Previously I had been doing mostly the pup call recordings and watching the brain related aspect of my grad student's project, but this week I transitioned into the behavioral.  When learning anything, the brain takes a singular experience and is able to generalize this to accommodate later experiences like this. When a maternal mouse hears their pup cry they learn the sound of the cry and are able to recognize that cry no matter which pup it is coming from.  For example, when an English speaker hears the word "hello" they are able to understand the meaning no matter the pitch, tone, volume, etc. This is because the brain has learned and thus generalized the singular experience into many experiences to come.

What this project is trying to determine, however, is the boundaries of the call that allow the mother to understand that it is, in fact, a pup call. This is where the experiment comes in. A maternal mother is placed in a box with a main atrium and two rooms attached. The nest is in the main atrium and there are speakers in the other two rooms. These speakers will be playing a true pup call (probably of her own pups) and a slightly altered version of that same pup call in the other. The way that the call is altered is what helps determine the boundaries. If the two calls are perceived the same to the mouse then there should be an equal probability of the mother going into either room but if not then we know that we have changed the category of the altered pup call.

Through many many trials, we will be able to (through trial and error) determine the boundaries of the pup call and thus how the mother is learning it.

Besides more imaging and graphing the pup calls, this was by far the most exciting thing I was able to do this week.

Also....

I began to explore the city! I had eaten at different restaurants around the hospital but I hadn't really explored the city. On a whim, I would go to the different buildings and places that I have never been (even though I have been in the city a million times since I was little)

I went to the UN, Central Park, the Empire state Building, Grand Central Station and a small bubble tea place near Penn Station which was amazing.





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