TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hepbasli, Denis
A1  - Gredy, Sina
A1  - Ullrich, Melanie
A1  - Reigl, Amelie
A1  - Abeßer, Marco
A1  - Raabe, Thomas
A1  - Schuh, Kai
T1  - Genotype- and Age-Dependent Differences in Ultrasound Vocalizations of SPRED2 Mutant Mice Revealed by Machine Deep Learning
T2  - Brain Sciences
N2  - Vocalization is an important part of social communication, not only for humans but also for mice. Here, we show in a mouse model that functional deficiency of Sprouty-related EVH1 domain-containing 2 (SPRED2), a protein ubiquitously expressed in the brain, causes differences in social ultrasound vocalizations (USVs), using an uncomplicated and reliable experimental setting of a short meeting of two individuals. SPRED2 mutant mice show an OCD-like behaviour, accompanied by an increased release of stress hormones from the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, both factors probably influencing USV usage. To determine genotype-related differences in USV usage, we analyzed call rate, subtype profile, and acoustic parameters (i.e., duration, bandwidth, and mean peak frequency) in young and old SPRED2-KO mice. We recorded USVs of interacting male and female mice, and analyzed the calls with the deep-learning DeepSqueak software, which was trained to recognize and categorize the emitted USVs. Our findings provide the first classification of SPRED2-KO vs. wild-type mouse USVs using neural networks and reveal significant differences in their development and use of calls. Our results show, first, that simple experimental settings in combination with deep learning are successful at identifying genotype-dependent USV usage and, second, that SPRED2 deficiency negatively affects the vocalization usage and social communication of mice.
KW  - SPRED
KW  - SPRED2
KW  - mice
KW  - neural networks
KW  - ultrasound vocalizations
KW  - DeepSqueak
Y1  - 2021
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24852
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-248525
SN  - 2076-3425
VL  - 11
IS  - 10
ER  -