CAREER: Impact of stress coping style on cognitive processes and the underlying neuromolecular mechanisms

持续的生存往往取决于有机体从以前的社会和环境挑战中学习的能力。人格类型、学习环境、压力和遗传是影响认知能力(例如学习和记忆)的一些变量。这些因素如何相互作用导致个体之间的学习和记忆差异，目前还知之甚少。个性类型可以一致地偏向认知、行为和生理反应，以应对不同的挑战。具有主动性(即“大胆”)个性类型的生物体，更有可能更倾向于冒险，以例行公事为导向，并表现出较低的压力反应。相比之下，反应型(即“害羞”)动物更不愿冒险，对环境变化更敏感，压力反应更强。这个项目将研究人格类型如何限制学习和记忆能力，并阐明潜在的神经生物学和遗传机制。对学习环境、大脑动力学和遗传学如何调节学习和记忆的研究，将为理解是什么驱动有偏见的认知反应并作为限制行为变异的重要因素提供目标。该项目还将为内布拉斯加大学奥马哈分校和奥马哈公立学校地区的K-12学生提供进行行为神经遗传学实验并提高科学素养和理解力的机会。暴露在压力之下往往会导致学习，而对过去经历的记忆可以为未来的行为反应提供信息。学习和记忆表现的差异部分归因于环境条件(例如，背景、强化类型)和人格类型。突触可塑性和神经传递的关键差异区分了不同的人格类型(例如，主动性和反应性压力应对方式)，也可能导致学习和记忆方面的差异。学习和记忆表现的差异可能是由大脑各区域特定的神经活动模式驱动的。和在神经网络中的活动反过来可能受到与突触可塑性相关的基因表达的安排和影响。这些实验将确定环境和强化类型如何与人格类型相互作用，从而在联想和空间学习和记忆表现上产生差异。此外，这些研究将阐明神经和基因转录活动如何解释强化类型之间和强化类型内学习和记忆的差异。具体地说，将通过对基因表达的操纵来评估学习中候选基因的必要性。这个项目的实验将有助于理解(1)学习环境和人格类型(即压力应对方式)是如何相交的，以及(2)基因表达和神经活动如何整合来调节学习和记忆的变化，这可能解释行为可塑性的限制。它还将为比较方法奠定基础，以评估所识别的神经分子机制是否类似地解释了其他类别的行为差异。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Continued survival often depends upon the ability of organisms to learn from previous social and environmental challenges. Personality type, learning environment, stress, and genetics are some of the variables that can influence cognitive capabilities (e.g. learning and memory). How these factors interact to contribute to differences in learning and memory between individuals, is poorly understood. Personality type can consistently bias cognitive, behavioral, and physiological responses to disparate challenges. Organisms with proactive (i.e. “bold”) personality type, are more likely more risk-prone, routine oriented, and show a low stress response. In contrast, reactive (i.e. “shy”) animals, are more risk-averse, sensitive to environmental change, and have a higher stress response. This project will examine how an personality type constrains learning and memory capabilities and elucidate the underlying neurobiological and genetic mechanisms. Investigation of how learning context, brain dynamics, and genetics modulate learning and memory, will provides targets for understanding what could drive biased cognitive responses and serve as important factors in constraining behavioral variation. This project will also opportunities for University of Nebraska at Omaha and K-12 students of the Omaha Public Schools district to perform behavioral neurogenetics experiments and enhance scientific literacy and comprehension.Exposure to stress often results in learning, and the memory of past experience can inform future behavioral response. Differences in learning and memory performance are attributable, in part, to environmental conditions (e.g. context, reinforcement type) and personality type. Key differences in synaptic plasticity and neurotransmission that distinguish alternative personality types (e.g. proactive and reactive stress coping styles) may also inform differences in learning and memory. Variations in learning and memory performance may be driven by specific neural activity patterns across brain regions. Activity of and in neural network in turn, may be arranged and influenced by the expression of genes related to synaptic plasticity. The experiments will identify how context and reinforcement type interact with personality type to produce variation in associative and spatial learning and memory performance. Further, these studies will elucidate how neural and gene transcriptional activities can account for variation in learning and memory between and within reinforcement types. Specifically, the necessity of candidate genes in learning will be assessed via the manipulation of gene expression. The experiments in this project will lead to advancements in understanding how (1) learning environment and personality type (i.e stress coping style) intersect and (2) gene expression and neural activity integrate to mediate variation of learning and memory that may explain constraints on behavioral plasticity. It will also set a foundation for comparative approaches to assess if the identified neuromolecular mechanisms similarly explain behavioral variation in other taxa.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.