Biology subjects

Babl, S. S.

Publications and source records attributed to Babl, S. S..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Bats use Dip Echolocation to overcome rhythmic noise

Active sensing systems are known to adapt the structure of sensory signals. Whether they can improve perception by controlling when sensory information is acquired remains unclear. We show that echolocating fruit bats exposed to rhythmic noise preferentially emit calls during recurring low-noise periods, a behaviour we term "dip echolocation". Dip echolocation occurred in laboratory and wild bats and represents an active-sensing analogue of dip listening in humans. A normative model showed that temporal positioning of calls emerges from a trade-off between sensory information and energetic cost, alongside concurrent adaptations of call structure. Pharmacological inactivation of the frontal auditory field disrupted precise temporal control, implicating a role for frontal cortical circuits in adaptive vocal timing. These findings identify adaptive vocal timing as an active-sensing strategy for overcoming acoustic interference.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Neurons in the bat auditory cortex encode class and complexity of future vocalizations

Vocal production is a complex behavior across the animal kingdom that relies on coordinated motor and auditory networks. However, the contribution of sensory areas in vocal control remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated vocalization-related activity in a major auditory processing area in the mammalian brain, the auditory cortex. We recorded neuronal spike rates in an audio-vocal specialist, the bat Carollia perspicillata, which emits vocalizations to echolocate and for social communication. We found distinct spike patterns encoding echolocation and communication calls several hundred milliseconds before vocal onset. Neuronal activity not only contained information about the vocalization category, but also reflected temporal complexity, specifically the syllable amount in a communication sequence. These vocalization-specific firing patterns were dependent on the neurons frequency receptive field. Our results indicate that single neurons in the auditory cortex not only process acoustic information but also encode the class and temporal structure of future vocal output.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Distinct Contributions of the Dorsal and Ventral Hippocampus to Spatial Working Memory and Spatial Coding in the Prefrontal Cortex

The hippocampus (HPC) supports spatial working memory (SWM) through its interactions with the prefrontal cortex (PFC). However, it is not clear whether and how the dorsal (dHPC) and ventral (vHPC) poles of the HPC make distinct contributions to SWM and whether they differentially influence the PFC. To address this question, we optogenetically silenced the dHPC or the vHPC while simultaneously recording from the PFC of mice performing a SWM task. We found that whereas both HPC subregions were necessary during the encoding phase of the task, only the dHPC was necessary during the choice phase. Silencing of either subregion altered the spatial firing patterns of PFC neurons. However, only silencing of the vHPC affected their coding of spatial goals. These results thus reveal distinct contributions of the dorsal and ventral HPC poles to SWM and the coding of behaviorally-relevant spatial information by PFC neurons.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Representation of Distance and Direction of Nearby Boundaries in Retrosplenial Cortex

Borders and edges are salient and behaviourally relevant features for navigating the environment. The brain forms dedicated neural representations of environmental boundaries, which are assumed to serve as a reference for spatial coding. Here we expand this border coding network to include the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) in which we identified neurons that increase their firing near all boundaries of an arena. RSC border cells specifically encode walls, but not objects, and maintain their tuning in the absence of direct sensory detection. Unlike border cells in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), RSC border cells are sensitive to the animals direction to nearby walls located contralateral to the recorded hemisphere. Pharmacogenetic inactivation of MEC led to a disruption of RSC border coding, but not vice versa, indicating network directionality. Together these data shed light on how information about distance and direction of boundaries is generated in the brain for guiding navigation behaviour.

neuroscience↗