Auditory experiences in early life guide preferences in adulthood: Study in mice

Male and female brains develop distinct preferences for sounds depending on the nature of auditory experiences in early life, according to a study in mice, findings from which have implications for one’s behaviour and sensory exposures in later life.

The study, led by India’s Kamini Sehrawat and Israel Nelken from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, exposed male and female mice to either Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 or silence as pups.

The symphony is considered a masterpiece in Western classical music and often used in research for looking into creative cognition, among other purposes.

Findings published in the journal Cell Reports reveal male mice were particularly influenced by early sound exposure — those exposed to the symphony showed a more diverse preference in sounds as adults, with many gravitating towards music.

However, males raised in silence or exposed to artificial noises tended to avoid music as adults, the researchers said.

Female mice appeared less affected by early auditory conditions, displaying a broad range of preferences regardless of exposure as pups.

“Early sound exposure affects males and females in fundamentally different ways. What looks like the same experience at the surface may trigger completely different neural adaptations in each sex,” said the study’s author Sehrawat, neuroscientist and a PhD student at Hebrew University’s Edmond and Lily Safra Brain Sciences department.

Sehrawat has an expertise in experimental design, data analysis, and computational modelling to investigate neural and behavioural dynamics.

“The findings could have real-world benefits for early childhood development and therapy,” she said.

The study also noted sex-based differences in activity in brain regions responsible for processing sounds.

Stronger responses in the auditory cortex of the female mice were associated with a lower interest in music.

However, neural responses in male mice were weakly linked to behaviour, suggesting sex-based differences in the mechanisms through which sound preferences are shaped, the researchers said.

The authors wrote, “Exposure affects mouse behaviour in a sex-dependent manner: for example, male mice, but not female mice, exposed to silence show robust preference to silence relative to their naive controls.”

“The neural activity in the auditory cortex is suppressed in mice exposed to either music or silence compared to naive controls. Remarkably, a robust negative correlation is found between neural response and sound preferences in female, but not in male, mice,” the team said.