Fig. 1: Suppression of auditory cortex activity during social exposure delays task acquisition.
From: Sensory cortex plasticity supports auditory social learning
a Schematic of social learning paradigm. Left panel: A naïve social observer (blue) instrumented with bilateral cannulae in AC initially experiences five consecutive social exposure sessions with a trained demonstrator gerbil (brown) that is performing an AM discrimination task. The animals are separated by an opaque divider, preventing the social observer from having access to visual cues during exposure. Separate groups of social observers receive infusions of either saline or muscimol prior to each day of social exposure. Right panel: The social observer subsequently practices the AM discrimination task. There are no infusions prior to practice days. b Task acquisition during practice sessions is assessed with the signal detection metric, d′, and performance is plotted as a function of the day of practice. Criterion d′ set at 1.5. No d′ was computed when the social observers initiated <15 Nogo trials in the practice sessions. Thin lines denote individual animals; thick lines and transparent areas denote mean ± SE. Muscimol infusion caused a significant delay in social learning (Steel–Dwass nonparametric comparison, two-sided, p = 0.033).
