Behavioral and Monoaminergic Responses to the Social Environment Throughout the Life of a Songbird (Melospiza lincolnii)
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Lyons, Susan. Behavioral and Monoaminergic Responses to the Social Environment Throughout the Life of a Songbird (melospiza Lincolnii). 2016. https://doi.org/10.17615/dpn9-as70APA
Lyons, S. (2016). Behavioral and Monoaminergic Responses to the Social Environment Throughout the Life of a Songbird (Melospiza lincolnii). https://doi.org/10.17615/dpn9-as70Chicago
Lyons, Susan. 2016. Behavioral and Monoaminergic Responses to the Social Environment Throughout the Life of a Songbird (melospiza Lincolnii). https://doi.org/10.17615/dpn9-as70- Last Modified
- March 21, 2019
- Creator
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Lyons, Susan
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology
- Abstract
- Individuals live in dynamic social environments and should benefit from integrating information about their environment and adjusting their behavior accordingly. Individuals could integrate information about the social environment through changes to neural pathways that are responsible for processing social signals. In this dissertation, I tested the hypothesis that variation in songs in the social environment influences both social behavior and the auditory system of songbirds. In a series of experiments, I exposed male and female Lincoln’s sparrows (Melospiza lincolnii) to songs with digitally manipulated trill performance, which is a measurement of the competitive quality and attractiveness of song. I found that exposure to high- compared to low-performance songs during development caused males to elevate their trill performance in adulthood. This pattern suggests that males invest differently in their song performance based on the social environment that they experience during development. I also found that females that were exposed to high- compared to low- performance songs during adulthood were subsequently less attracted to novel songs. I hypothesized that the behavioral plasticity in males and females in response to trill performance in the social environment was regulated by neuroplasticity in brain regions responsible for processing songs. Central monoamines regulate experience-dependent neuroplasticity in vertebrates. Therefore, I used high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection to measure monoamines and their metabolites in extracts of tissue collected from the auditory telencephalon of males and females following exposure to songs that differed in trill performance. Exposure to high- compared to low-performance songs during development affected both dopaminergic and noradrenergic activity at different periods in the male’s life. However, in a separate study I found that exposure to high- compared to low-performance songs in adulthood did not influence monoamines in the auditory telencephalon of males, although it did decrease noradrenergic activity in the auditory telencephalon of females, suggesting that monoamines play different roles in sensory processing of adult males compared to adult females. Together, the effects of the social environment on behavior and on monoaminergic activity are consistent with the hypothesis that monoamines in the auditory telencephalon mediate song-induced neuroplasticity and regulate sensory perception.
- Date of publication
- August 2016
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- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Advisor
- Sockman, Keith
- Godwin, John
- Burmeister, Sabrina
- Lohmann, Kenneth
- Pfennig, Karin
- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
- Graduation year
- 2016
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