Towards an Understanding of the Neural Basis of Acoustic Communication in Crickets

Their conspicuous acoustic communication behaviour makes crickets excellent model systems to study the neural mechanisms underlying signal generation and auditory pattern recognition. Male singing is driven by a central pattern generator (CPG) housed in the metathoracic and anterior abdominal ganglia with rhythmically active opener and closer interneurons that can reset the chirp rhythm. Command neurons descending from the brain control the singing behaviour. Female phonotaxis is tuned towards the species-specific pattern of the male calling song and auditory orientation behaviour demonstrates a parallel organisation of pattern recognition and highly accurate steering. First order auditory processing occurs in the thorax and pattern recognition in the brain. Local auditory brain neurons are tuned to the structure of the calling song, based on fast integration of inhibitory and excitatory synaptic activity. How pattern recognition is linked to the generation of auditory steering commands still remains an open question.