New Insights from 22-kHz Ultrasonic Vocalizations to Characterize Fear Responses: Relationship with Respiration and Brain Oscillatory Dynamics

International audienceVisual Abstract Significance Statement While freezing is the most frequently used measure of fear, it is only one among the different components of rodents' response to threatening events. Ultrasonic vocalization (USV) is another index that gives additional insight into the socioemotional status of an individual. Our study is the first to describe the effects of USV production on rat's brain oscillatory activities in the fear neural network, and to relate some of them to changes in nasal breathing. A better knowledge of the impact of social vocalizations on brain neural dynamics is not only important for understanding the respective weight of the different components of fear response, but is also particularly relevant for rodent models of human neuropsychiatric disorders, for which socio-affective communication is severely impaired