New research reveals how smell and hearing interact in the brain to drive social behavior, using mouse maternal instincts as a model.
Imagine you’re at a dinner party, but you can’t smell the food cooking or hear the dinner bell. Sounds like a dream, right? What if it wasn’t?
“When we experience the world and interact with people, we use all our senses,” Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Stephen Shea says. “That’s true for animals and humans.” However, that’s not always the case in developmental disorders like autism. These conditions can affect how the brain processes incoming information, making it difficult to interpret the social cues that drive conversations, dates, and other interpersonal activities.
Exactly how such signals mix and influence each other in the brain isn’t well understood. To shed light on the subject, Shea and graduate student Alexandra Nowlan traced how smell and hearing interact in mouse brains during a maternal behavior called pup retrieval. This activity isn’t limited to mothers. It can also be learned by surrogates. Think stepmoms and babysitters.
Neural pathways, stained neon green above, carry smell signals through the mouse brain from the basal amygdala to the auditory cortex. Credit: Shea lab/Cold Spring Harbor LaboratoryThe Role of the Basal Amygdala in Sensory Processing
In mice and humans, the BA is involved in learning and processing social and emotional signals. During pup retrieval, the team found that BA neurons carry smell signals to the brain’s hearing center, the auditory cortex (AC). There, they merge with incoming sound signals and influence the animal’s response to future sounds—like pups’ cries. Amazingly, when Shea’s team blocked maternal mice from accessing smell signals, their pup retrieval response almost completely broke down.
“We think what’s reaching the AC is being filtered through social-emotional signals from BA neurons,” Shea explains. “That processing can be impaired in autism and neurodegenerative conditions. We think many parts of the brain participate in this behavior and that it’s very richly controlled.”
Shea’s lab is now exploring how these brain regions connect and interact with one another. Their work may lead to a better understanding of how autism can affect a person’s ability to interpret social cues. But that’s just the beginning.
“The idea that we found a neural circuit that may allow emotional processes to directly interact with perception is very exciting to me,” Shea says. He’s not alone there. His research might yet provide answers to one of humanity’s oldest questions. How do our senses inform the ways we connect with one another and experience the world?
News
Scientists Flip a Gut Virus “Kill Switch” – Expose a Hidden Threat in Antibiotic Treatment
Scientists have long known that bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, live in our gut, but exactly what they do has remained elusive. Researchers developed a clever mouse model that can temporarily eliminate these phages [...]
Enhanced Antibacterial Polylactic Acid-Curcumin Nanofibers for Wound Dressing
Background Wound healing is a complex physiological process that can be compromised by infection and impaired tissue regeneration. Conventional dressings, typically made from natural fibers such as cotton or linen, offer limited functionality. Nanofiber [...]
Global Nanomaterial Regulation: A Country-by-Country Comparison
Nanomaterials are materials with at least one dimension smaller than 100 nanometres (about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair). Because of their tiny size, they have unique properties that can be useful in [...]
Pandemic Potential: Scientists Discover 3 Hotspots of Deadly Emerging Disease in the US
Virginia Tech researchers discovered six new rodent carriers of hantavirus and identified U.S. hotspots, highlighting the virus’s adaptability and the impact of climate and ecology on its spread. Hantavirus recently drew public attention following reports [...]
Studies detail high rates of long COVID among healthcare, dental workers
Researchers have estimated approximately 8% of Americas have ever experienced long COVID, or lasting symptoms, following an acute COVID-19 infection. Now two recent international studies suggest that the percentage is much higher among healthcare workers [...]
Melting Arctic Ice May Unleash Ancient Deadly Diseases, Scientists Warn
Melting Arctic ice increases human and animal interactions, raising the risk of infectious disease spread. Researchers urge early intervention and surveillance. Climate change is opening new pathways for the spread of infectious diseases such [...]
Scientists May Have Found a Secret Weapon To Stop Pancreatic Cancer Before It Starts
Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have found that blocking the FGFR2 and EGFR genes can stop early-stage pancreatic cancer from progressing, offering a promising path toward prevention. Pancreatic cancer is expected to become [...]
Breakthrough Drug Restores Vision: Researchers Successfully Reverse Retinal Damage
Blocking the PROX1 protein allowed KAIST researchers to regenerate damaged retinas and restore vision in mice. Vision is one of the most important human senses, yet more than 300 million people around the world are at [...]
Differentiating cancerous and healthy cells through motion analysis
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have found that the motion of unlabeled cells can be used to tell whether they are cancerous or healthy. They observed malignant fibrosarcoma [...]
This Tiny Cellular Gate Could Be the Key to Curing Cancer – And Regrowing Hair
After more than five decades of mystery, scientists have finally unveiled the detailed structure and function of a long-theorized molecular machine in our mitochondria — the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier. This microscopic gatekeeper controls how [...]
Unlocking Vision’s Secrets: Researchers Reveal 3D Structure of Key Eye Protein
Researchers have uncovered the 3D structure of RBP3, a key protein in vision, revealing how it transports retinoids and fatty acids and how its dysfunction may lead to retinal diseases. Proteins play a critical [...]
5 Key Facts About Nanoplastics and How They Affect the Human Body
Nanoplastics are typically defined as plastic particles smaller than 1000 nanometers. These particles are increasingly being detected in human tissues: they can bypass biological barriers, accumulate in organs, and may influence health in ways [...]
Measles Is Back: Doctors Warn of Dangerous Surge Across the U.S.
Parents are encouraged to contact their pediatrician if their child has been exposed to measles or is showing symptoms. Pediatric infectious disease experts are emphasizing the critical importance of measles vaccination, as the highly [...]
AI at the Speed of Light: How Silicon Photonics Are Reinventing Hardware
A cutting-edge AI acceleration platform powered by light rather than electricity could revolutionize how AI is trained and deployed. Using photonic integrated circuits made from advanced III-V semiconductors, researchers have developed a system that vastly [...]
A Grain of Brain, 523 Million Synapses, Most Complicated Neuroscience Experiment Ever Attempted
A team of over 150 scientists has achieved what once seemed impossible: a complete wiring and activity map of a tiny section of a mammalian brain. This feat, part of the MICrONS Project, rivals [...]
The Secret “Radar” Bacteria Use To Outsmart Their Enemies
A chemical radar allows bacteria to sense and eliminate predators. Investigating how microorganisms communicate deepens our understanding of the complex ecological interactions that shape our environment is an area of key focus for the [...]
