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Biol Open
2018 Dec 03;712:. doi: 10.1242/bio.035956.
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Auditory perception exhibits sexual dimorphism and left telencephalic dominance in Xenopus laevis.
Fan Y
,
Yue X
,
Xue F
,
Cui J
,
Brauth SE
,
Tang Y
,
Fang G
.
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Sex differences in both vocalization and auditory processing have been commonly found in vocal animals, although the underlying neural mechanisms associated with sexual dimorphism of auditory processing are not well understood. In this study we investigated whether auditory perception exhibits sexual dimorphism in Xenopus laevis To do this we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by white noise (WN) and conspecific calls in the telencephalon, diencephalon and mesencephalon respectively. Results showed that (1) the N1 amplitudes evoked in the righttelencephalon and rightdiencephalon of males by WN are significantly different from those evoked in females; (2) in males the N1 amplitudes evoked by conspecific calls are significantly different from those evoked by WN; (3) in females the N1 amplitude for the leftmesencephalon was significantly lower than for other brain areas, while the P2 and P3 amplitudes for the rightmesencephalon were the smallest; in contrast these amplitudes for the leftmesencephalon were the smallest in males. These results suggest auditory perception is sexually dimorphic. Moreover, the amplitude of each ERP component (N1, P2 and P3) for the lefttelencephalon was the largest in females and/or males, suggesting that left telencephalic dominance exists for auditory perception in Xenopus.
Fig. 1. Grand average waveforms for different brain regions during playbacks of WN, FS and SF calls, respectively (n=16). Abbreviations: LT and RT,
the left and right telencephalon; LD and RD, the left and right diencephalon; LM and RM, the left and right mesencephalon; WN, white noise; FS, fast-slow
trill call; SF, slow-fast trill call.
Fig. 2. Means and standard deviations
for the N1 amplitudes evoked by each
acoustic stimulus in each brain region
for females (A) and males (B),
respectively (n=16). Filled stars denote
that there were significant differences
between different brain areas or different
acoustic stimuli (P<0.05). Abbreviations:
LT and RT, the left and right
telencephalon; LD and RD, the left and
right diencephalon; LM and RM, the left
and right mesencephalon; WN, white
noise; FS, fast-slow trill call; SF, slow-fast
trill call.
Fig. 3. Means and standard deviations
for the P2 amplitudes evoked by each
acoustic stimulus in each brain region
for females (A) and males (B),
respectively (n=16). Filled stars and open
stars denote that there were significant
(P<0.05) and extremely significant
(P<0.001) differences between different
brain areas, respectively. Abbreviations:
LT and RT, the left and right
telencephalon; LD and RD, the left and
right diencephalon; LM and RM, the left
and right mesencephalon; WN, white
noise; FS, fast-slow trill call; SF, slow-fast
trill call.
Fig. 4. Means and standard deviations
for the P3 amplitudes evoked by each
acoustic stimulus in each brain region
for females (A) and males (B),
respectively (n=16). Filled stars and open
stars denote that there were significant
(P<0.05) and highly significant (P<0.001)
differences between different brain areas,
respectively. Abbreviations: LT and RT,
the left and right telencephalon; LD and
RD, the left and right diencephalon; LM
and RM, the left and right
mesencephalon; WN, white noise; FS,
fast-slow trill call; SF, slow-fast trill call.
Fig. 5. Electrode placements and 10 s of typical EEG tracings for each channel. The intersection of the three dashed lines in the head of X. laevis
denotes the lambda (i.e. the vertex where skull sutures intersect). Abbreviations: LT and RT, the left and right telencephalon; LD and RD, the left and right
diencephalon; LM and RM, the left and right mesencephalon. Image adapted from Fan et al. (2018) licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
legalcode CC-BY 4.0 with permission.
Fig. 6. Waveforms and spectrograms of the three stimuli for a randomly selected stimulus set. (A) WN, white noise; (B) FS, fast-slow trill call; (C) SF,
slow-fast trill call. Since the frequency response of the speaker is 0.1–10 kHz, white noise within the same bandwidth is shown.
Figure S1. Peripheral blood smear stained with Rapid Wright-Giemsa stain.
Abbreviations: B, Basophil; L, Lymphocyte; E, Eosinophil; M, Monocyte; N,
Neutrophil.
Figure S2. An photo of a typical preparation showing the positions of 7 electrodes on the
skull of a subject. There were 2 electrodes above the telencephalon, diencephalon and
mesencephalon respectively, while the reference was above the cerebellum.
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