Epigenetic influences on the early development of social brain functions

获得有效社交互动的技能对婴儿来说至关重要。该项目将研究支撑成功的社会互动的大脑过程的早期发展，并确定影响社会功能的因素。研究人员将调查婴儿出生后第一年的社会和大脑发育，重点关注催产素的作用。催产素是一种神经递质和激素，与几种社会行为有关。通过揭示大脑生物学如何形成并与早期婴儿社会发展相互作用，这项研究将填补我们知识上的重要空白，并对理解健康和非典型发展具有广泛的意义。该项目本质上是多学科的，因为它使用了结合表观遗传学、神经科学和行为方法的尖端方法。这些发现将广泛适用于多个学科，并将为分子生物学、神经科学和社会心理学的理解提供信息。计划中的实验将为对发展心理学、认知科学、分子遗传学和发展神经科学感兴趣的学生提供宝贵的研究机会和独特的训练。人类大脑在生命的第一年经历了关键的发育，这使得从面孔和声音中有效地处理社会信息成为可能。本项目将测试内源性催产素通过调节面部和声音处理过程中的神经噪声水平来影响早期发育过程中社会信息处理的假设。催产素是哺乳动物大脑中的一种神经递质，在许多社会行为中起着关键作用。催产素受体（OXTR）允许大脑对催产素做出反应，它们在大脑中的数量因人群而异。这些受体的产生受表观遗传控制，特别是通过DNA甲基化，而OXTR患病率的变异性与成人社会信息处理的变异性以及自闭症等神经发育障碍的存在有关。该项目将研究，从发育早期开始，神经噪音是否在通过催产素系统控制的过程中，在建立面部和声音传达的社会信息的显著性方面发挥主导作用。为此，本项目将(1)利用脑电图研究婴儿出生后第一年神经噪声的纵向变化；(2)评估神经噪声的个体差异是否能预测婴儿时期的社会信息处理和行为结果；(3)绘制催产素系统的表观遗传修饰如何影响早期发育期间神经噪声的水平。研究典型发育婴儿的神经噪声，并确定导致其个体差异的过程，将有助于对早期社会和大脑发育有更深入、更机械的理解。

Acquiring skills for effective social interaction is critical for infants. This project will examine the early development of brain processes that underpin successful social interactions, and identify factors that affect social functioning. The researchers will investigate social and brain development during the first year of life with a specific focus on the role of oxytocin, a neurotransmitter and hormone implicated in several social behaviors. By revealing how brain biology shapes and interacts with early infant social development, this research will fill an important gap in our knowledge and has broad implications for understanding healthy and atypical development. The project is multidisciplinary in nature as it uses a cutting-edge approach combining epigenetic, neuroscience, and behavioral methods. The findings will be broadly applicable to multiple disciplines and will inform understandings of molecular biology, neuroscience, and social psychology. The planned experiments will provide valuable research opportunities and unique training for students interested in developmental psychology, cognitive science, molecular genetics, and developmental neuroscience.The human brain undergoes critical development during the first year of life, which allows for the effective processing of social information from faces and voices. This project will test the hypothesis that endogenous oxytocin impacts social information processing during early development by regulating levels of neural noise during face and voice processing. Oxytocin acts as a neurotransmitter in the mammalian brain and plays a critical role in many social behaviors. Oxytocin receptors (OXTR) allow the brain to respond to oxytocin, and their quantity in the brain is variable in the population. The production of these receptors is under epigenetic control, specifically through DNA methylation, and variability in OXTR prevalence is linked to variability in social information processing among adults and to the presence of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. The project will examine whether, from early in development, neural noise plays a predominant role in establishing the salience of social information conveyed by faces and voices, through a process governed by the oxytocin system. To this end, this project will (1) investigate longitudinal changes in neural noise across the first year of life using electroencephalography, (2) assess whether individual differences in neural noise predict social information processing and behavioral outcomes during infancy, and (3) map how epigenetic modifications in the oxytocin system impact levels of neural noise during early development. Studying neural noise in typically developing infants and identifying the processes that contribute to its individual variability will foster a deeper and more mechanistic understanding of early social and brain development.