CAREER: BCSP: Network level analysis of oxytocin regulation of naked mole rat and hippocampal neuron interactions.

这个项目的目标是建立一个研究环境，以调查大脑如何完成在群体成员之间协调社会行为的非凡任务。这项工作将利用先前存在的社会行为差异来测试大脑中哪些系统对这些差异负责的假设。裸鼹鼠(Heterocephalus Glaber)是一种依靠社会互动和合作活动在恶劣的自然栖息地生存的啮齿动物。因此，裸鼠在所有脊椎动物中保持着最大的群体，使用合作繁殖系统来饲养后代，并能够对群体成员进行个体识别。通过开发新的技术工具来跟踪行为而实现的初步检查表明，在每个群体中，动物参与社会行为的时间长短存在差异。在该奖项支持的学生的帮助下，我们将使用社交网络分析方法来识别具有特别高或低水平社交行为的动物，并测量候选荷尔蒙催产素的大脑表达是否与这些个体差异相对应。我们还将操纵目标裸鼠大脑中的催产素水平，以确定这如何影响它们在社交网络中的位置。最后，将通过大规模的神经元活动记录来确定催产素对裸鼠大脑中神经元相互作用的影响。随着鼹鼠行为和神经元数据的收集，它们将通过社交媒体实时分享，以促进合作，并为所有教育水平的学生提供独特的教育机会。通过这项提议资助的助教将有助于利用这些工具为纽约市公立学校的K-12学生开发新的科学课程。

The goal of this project is to establish a research environment to investigate how the brain accomplishes the extraordinary task of orchestrating social behavior among members of a group. This work will take advantage of pre-existing differences in social behavior to test hypotheses about what systems in the brain are responsible for those differences. The naked mole rat (Heterocephalus Glaber) is a rodent that relies on social interaction and cooperative activity to survive in its harsh natural habitat. As a result, naked mole rats maintain the largest colony of any vertebrate animal, use a cooperative breeding system to raise young, and are capable of individual recognition of colony members. A preliminary examination, achieved through the development of novel technological tools to track behaviors, demonstrates that within each colony, there is variability in the amount of time animals spend engaging in social behavior. With the help of students supported by this award, we will use a social network analysis approach to identify animals with particularly high or low levels of social behavior, and measure whether brain expression of a candidate hormone, oxytocin, corresponds to these individual differences. We will also manipulate oxytocin levels in the brains of targeted naked mole rats to determine how this influences their place in the social network. Finally, the effect of oxytocin on neuronal interactions in the naked mole rat brain will be determined by using large-scale recordings of neuron activity. As the mole rat behavior and neuronal data are collected, they will be shared, in real time, through social media outlets to promote collaboration and provide unique educational opportunities for students at all educational levels. Teaching fellows, funded through this proposal will help to use these tools to develop new science curriculum for K-12 students in New York City public schools.