An audio-vocal interface in echolocating horseshoe bats.

ABSTRACT

The control of vocalization depends significantly on auditory feedback in any species of mammals. Echolocating horseshoe bats, however, provide an excellent model system to study audio-vocal (AV) interactions. These bats can precisely control the frequency of their echolocation calls by monitoring the characteristics of the returning echo; they compensate for flight-induced Doppler shifts in the echo frequency by lowering the frequency of the subsequent vocalization cells (Schnitzler, 1968; Schuller et al., 1974, 1975). It was the aim of this study to investigate the neuronal mechanisms underlying this Doppler-shift compensation (DSC) behavior. For that purpose, the neuronal activity of single units was studied during spontaneous vocalizations of the bats and compared with responses to auditory stimuli such as playback vocalizations and artificially generated acoustic stimuli. The natural echolocation situation was simulated by triggering an acoustic stimulus to the bat's own vocalization and by varying the time delay of this artificial "echo" relative to the vocalization onset. Single-unit activity was observed before, during, and/or after the bat's vocalization as well as in response to auditory stimuli. However, the activity patterns associated with vocalization differed from those triggered by auditory stimuli even when the auditory stimuli were acoustically identical to the bat's vocalization. These neurons were called AV neurons. Their distribution was restricted to an area in the paralemniscal tegmentum of the midbrain. When the natural echolocation situation was stimulated, the responses of AV neurons depended on the time delay between the onset of vocalization and the beginning of the simulated echo. This delay sensitivity disappeared completely when the act of vocalization was replaced by an auditory stimulus that mimicked acoustic self-stimulation during the emission of an echolocation call. The activity of paralemniscal neurons was correlated with all parameters of echolocation calls and echoes that are relevant in context with DSC. These results suggest a model for the regulation of vocalization frequencies by inhibitory auditory feedback.