BRAIN EAGER: Socially Situated Neuroscience: Creating a suite of tools for studying sociality and interoception

社会世界对我们的行为和大脑有着强大的影响。然而，我们对大脑中神经元功能的大部分了解都是基于动物或人类的神经记录，这些动物或人类与他们的社会同行隔离。因此，存在着一个知识差距，这在很大程度上是由于缺乏在社会领域进行实验的记录和行为工具，仍然允许适当的实验控制。 Andrea千叶博士及其同事的目标是通过开发以下产品来填补这一空白：1）光，无线，灵活的记录传感器，可以以非侵入性的方式提供大脑和身体信号; 2）具有合成的，生物启发的大脑的机器人，可以充当社会相关实体; 3）一系列新颖的实验，以询问大脑回路的功能及其与社会互动和决策过程中其他生物信号的关系。在复杂的社会决策过程中记录和整合大脑和身体信号的能力将为研究和重建大脑信号提供一个研究平台，以了解大脑如何代表社会世界。这项新技术最终可以扩展到人类使用，提供了一种手段，以更好地了解目标导向的社会行动的神经基础，超越目前的可行性。除了其推进社会神经科学研究不足的领域的潜力，工具的开发将提供一个尖端平台，以培养下一代多元化的跨学科科学家。 研究团队致力于公共宣传，并计划：1）公开讲座，包括K-12和本科生观众; 2）通过适当的媒体渠道传播信息; 3）发起虚拟机器人竞赛，吸引不同背景的有前途的年轻学者从事科学事业，通过突出令人兴奋的跨学科研究，将大脑和行为的研究与工程方法联系起来。具体而言，将开发并结合3项主要技术，以组成一套神经科学工具，包括：1）用于检测自主反应（如呼吸率和心率）的灵活，可拉伸的无线传感器，两者都受到社会交往的调制; 2）将自主信号与高密度神经生理学无线记录系统集成，因为目前没有这样的系统存在。 这些系统的近似结果是沉重的仪器，破坏了正常的运动和社会行为，因此第二代这种技术将包括与可注射细胞规模的光电设备的集成; 3）合成生命形式（机器人）进一步发展为神经科学研究工具和测试床，用于整合从神经系统复杂动力学的实验数据中获得的理论原理。系统.最终，机器人的神经启发架构将反过来扩展到包括和综合对社会功能至关重要的神经系统的正式理论属性。可以用这些工具解决的基本神经科学问题是无限的。

The social world exerts a powerful influence on our behavior and our brains. Yet, much of our knowledge regarding the function of neurons in the brain is based on neural recordings from animals or humans who are isolated from their social counterparts. Thus, there exists a knowledge gap that is largely due to the lack of recording and behavioral tools for doing experiments in the social realm that still allow proper experimental control. Dr. Andrea Chiba and colleagues aim to fill this gap by developing the following: 1) light, wireless, flexible recording sensors that can provide brain and body signals in a non-intrusive manner; 2) a robot with a synthetic, biologically inspired brain that can act as a socially relevant entity; and 3) a set of novel experiments to interrogate the function of brain circuits and their relationship to other biological signals during social interactions and decisions. The ability to record and integrate signals from the brain and body during complex social decisions will provide a research platform for studying and reconstructing brain signals to understand how the brain represents the social world. The new technology can eventually be scaled for use with humans, providing a means to better understand the neural basis of goal-directed social actions beyond what is currently feasible.In addition to its potential for advancing the understudied field of social neuroscience, the development of the tools will provide a cutting-edge platform to train the next generation of diverse interdisciplinary scientists. The research team is committed to public outreach and plans are in place for: 1) public talks, including to K-12 and undergraduate audiences; 2) dissemination of information through appropriate media outlets; and 3) launching a virtual robot competition to engage promising young scholars of diverse backgrounds in scientific careers, by highlighting exciting interdisciplinary research that links the study of brain and behavior with engineering approaches. Specifically, 3 major technologies will be developed and conjoined to comprise a suite of neuroscientific tools that include: 1) Flexible, stretchable, wireless sensors for detecting autonomic responses such as respiration rate and heart rate, both of which are modulated by social encounters; 2) integration of the autonomic signals with high-density neurophysiological wireless recording systems, as no such system exists currently. Approximations of these systems result in heavy instrumentation that disrupts ordinary movement and social behavior, so the second generation of this technology would include integration with injectable cellular scale opto-electronic devices; and 3) A synthetic life form (robot) to be further developed as a neuroscience research tool and a test bed for integration of theoretical principles gained from experimental data of the complex dynamics of neural systems. Ultimately, the neurally inspired architecture of the robot will, in turn, be expanded to include and synthesize the formal theoretical properties of neural systems essential to social function. The basic neuroscientific questions that can be addressed with these tools are boundless.