The neural and hormonal substrates of communication in a social environment: Signaler and bystander effects

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。动物的行为最终决定了个体的生存和繁殖。在社会物种中，行为发生在群体中，个人所做的选择受到他人的影响和影响。动物成群结队地交流有关群体隶属关系、生殖状况和内部状态的复杂信息，以便旁观者或窃听者仅通过观察就能获得有价值的信息。然而，目前还不知道社交信息是如何传递到大脑并由大脑处理的。这个项目中的实验问：被观看如何影响一个人的行为和生理？接受社交信息是如何改变大脑的？为了回答第一个问题，研究小组将测量打斗的男性在被观众观看时，他们的大脑基因表达和性激素水平是如何变化的，这些观众的性别和支配地位与这些男性相比都不同。为了回答第二个问题，女性将接触到有关首选伴侣的社交信息，然后将量化大脑中循环的激素水平以及即时的早期基因表达。这些实验将发现大脑如何在复杂的社会环境中对信息交流做出反应。该项目将包括培训各种各样的本科生、研究生和博士后学者，其中大多数人将是科学界代表性不足的群体的成员。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Animal behavior ultimately determines survival and reproduction of individuals. In social species, behavior occurs within groups where the choices made by an individual is influenced by and influences others. Animals in groups communicate sophisticated information about group affiliation, reproductive status and internal state so that bystanders, or eavesdroppers, get valuable information simply from observation. However, it is not known how social information is communicated to and processed by the brain. The experiments in this project ask: How does being watched influence the behavior and physiology of an individual? How does receiving social information alter the brain? To answer the first question, the research team will measure how fighting males change their levels of brain gene expression and sex hormones in relation to being watched by audiences that vary both in sex and dominance status relative to those males. To answer the second question, females will be exposed to social information about a preferred mate and then circulating hormone levels as well as immediate early gene expression in the brain will be quantified. These experiments will allow discovery of how the brain responds to communication of information in a complex social environment. The project will include the training of a wide diversity of undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, a majority of whom will be members of groups underrepresented in science.