Sound preferences in mice are sex dependent

We investigated the impact of early exposure to sound and to silence on sound preferences later in life in mice. We exposed young mice during the critical periods to excerpts of music (first movement of Beethoven’s symphony no. 9), non-music sounds, or to silence. We tested the sound preference behavior a few weeks later. Exposure affects mouse behavior 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.