Neural mechanisms of social behavior in rodents

所有物种的动物都需要识别潜在的配偶和已知的敌人，并相应地调整自己的行为。大脑已经进化出了控制攻击和交配等关键社会行为的硬连线神经通路，但这些神经回路的基本组织原则仍然知之甚少。这个项目测试了信息素信号——影响接收生物行为的化学信号——是如何被用来指导生殖特异性行为的，以及相应的神经通路是如何被社会经验改变的。像许多动物一样，雄性老鼠形成的统治等级制度强烈地影响着它们的行为，地位低的雄性老鼠的攻击性减少，地位高的雄性老鼠的攻击性保持或增加。目前的实验研究了熟悉新的社会伙伴如何改变大脑处理信息素信号的方式，从而改变了主导动物和顺从动物引发攻击行为的阈值。首先，为了研究学习背后的基本生物过程，研究人员使用单个神经元记录来测试细胞变化，这些细胞变化会改变他们对熟悉个体的反应。其次，研究人员使用新的工具来可视化活跃的社会互动中的神经活动，评估熟悉度如何形成与主导和服从伴侣相对应的大脑活动模式。总的来说，这项工作解决了神经变化，使动物能够适应他们的行为，以反映他们与他人的社会经验的历史。该项目还为来自不同背景的当地高中生和本科生提供了参与神经科学研究的机会，包括使用尖端技术，并为当地小学和科学博物馆开发和传播教育材料。关键的社会行为，如攻击、繁殖和养育是由保守的神经回路控制的，在物种之间具有很强的相似性。尽管它们起着至关重要的作用，但人们对将感官信号转化为适合男性和女性的行为的途径知之甚少。本项目研究了小鼠犁鼻系统的神经编码和可塑性，该系统在将社会化学信号映射到性别特异性反应中起着关键作用。这项工作的主要假设是，不同的行为是由附属嗅觉系统中的专用通道介导的，这些通道被社会经验选择性地改变以反映个体关系。它主要关注攻击性，这是一种由其他雄性迅速而可靠地引发的核心雄性行为，但随着动物建立统治关系，也会发生巨大变化。为了描述攻击行为中经验依赖的变化，这些实验结合了离体细胞电生理学和活体副嗅球活动成像，副嗅球是将感觉信号传递到中央行为网络的关键节点。由此产生的数据将解决与先天行为密切相关的回路中感觉编码的基本原理，以及表征一种新的细胞可塑性形式，这种形式可能支持各种社会互动中的适应性变化。总之，这项工作有助于确定大脑如何组织和传递引导刻板行为反应的感官信号，同时仍然允许与熟悉的伙伴进行灵活的互动。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Animals of all species need to recognize potential mates and known foes, and adjust their behavior accordingly. The brain has evolved hardwired neural pathways for controlling key social behaviors like aggression and mating, but basic organizing principles of these neural circuits remain poorly understood. This project tests how pheromonal signals-- chemical signals that impact behavior of the receiving organism-- are used to guide reproduction-specific behaviors, and how the corresponding neural pathways are altered by social experience. Like many animals, male mice form dominance hierarchies that strongly influence their behavior, where aggression is reduced in low-status males and preserved or increased in high-status males. The present experiments examine how becoming familiar with new social partners changes the way their pheromonal signals are processed in the brain, shifting thresholds for triggering aggressive behavior in dominant and submissive animals. First, to examine the basic biological processes that underlie learning, the investigators use single-neuron recordings to test the cellular changes that alter their responses to familiar individuals. Second, the investigators use new tools for visualizing neural activity during active social interactions, evaluating how familiarity shapes the patterns of brain activity corresponding to both dominant and submissive partners. Overall, this work addresses the neural changes that allow animals to adapt their behavior to reflect the history of their social experience with others. The project also offers opportunities for local high school students and undergraduate trainees from diverse backgrounds to engage in neuroscience research, including the use of cutting-edge technologies, and includes the development and dissemination of educational materials for local elementary schools and a science museum.Key social behaviors, such as aggression, reproduction, and parenting are controlled by conserved neural circuits with strong similarities across species. Despite their critical role, little is known about the pathways that translate sensory cues into male- and female-appropriate behaviors. This project characterizes neural coding and plasticity in the mouse vomeronasal system, which plays a key role in mapping social chemosignals onto sex-specific responses. The main hypothesis of this work is that distinct behaviors are mediated by dedicated pathways in the accessory olfactory system, which are selectively altered by social experience to reflect individual relationships. It focuses primarily on aggression, a core male behavior that is rapidly and reliably triggered by other males, yet is also dramatically altered as animals establish dominance relationships. To characterize experience-dependent changes in aggression, these experiments combine ex vivo cellular electrophysiology and in vivo imaging of activity in the accessory olfactory bulb, a key node for routing sensory signals to central behavioral networks. The resulting data will address basic principles of sensory coding in a circuit intimately linked to innate behaviors, as well as characterize a novel form of cellular plasticity that may support adaptive changes in diverse social interactions. Together, this work helps establish how the brain organizes and routes the sensory signals that guide stereotyped behavioral responses, while still allowing flexibility in interactions with familiar partners.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.