Collaborative Research: NCS: Foundations of learning: individual variation, plasticity, and evolution

人类的大脑具有显著的可塑性；适应学习可能是人类进化的标志性特征。该项目将使用非侵入性测试和存档的大脑样本和图像，研究与人类进化密切相关的类人猿物种——倭黑猩猩和黑猩猩——大脑组织中与学习相关的方面。这项工作的重点是人类进化过程中重要的两项习得技能：工具使用和语言。一项分析将使用先前研究中存档的大脑图像，并结合新的技能学习行为测试。猿类将接受与进化相关的、自然的工具使用技能的训练，研究人员将测量大脑组织的个体差异与技能学习的关系。另一项分析将检查类人猿的大脑组织，这些类人猿接受过和没有接受过使用类似语言系统的训练，包括手势和象形文字板。研究人员将研究语言训练与大脑中与学习相关的变化之间的关系。研究结果有望揭示人类物种在进化过程中可能发生的大脑变化，为与人类密切相关的灵长类物种在现实世界中技能学习的神经机制提供洞见，并有助于理解大脑结构的个体差异如何与个体行为和认知差异相关。该项目将采用跨学科、比较、综合的方法来研究大脑解剖学中的个体差异如何影响现实世界中与进化相关的技能的学习轨迹。它还研究了个体一生中学习产生的后天的、可塑性的大脑变化，以及几代人之间自然选择产生的进化的、遗传的变化之间的相互作用。该项目汇集了来自神经科学和神经影像学、人类学、考古学和动物行为学的方法论和理论方法。识别类人猿语言训练导致的可塑性变化将为我们人类语言回路的进化提供一个新的窗口，并将首次为具有里程碑意义的、长期进行的类人猿语言训练研究提供关键的神经生物学信息。此外，黑猩猩和倭黑猩猩大脑解剖结构的个体差异将与两种与进化相关的现实世界技能的学习轨迹差异有关：简单的石器敲击和坚果敲击。总之，这项研究将为个体生命周期（可塑性）和进化的物种水平变化（适应）的时间尺度上习得学习技能的大脑变化提供重要的新见解。该项目由理解神经和认知系统综合策略（NCS）项目资助，该项目由计算机与信息科学与工程（CISE）、教育与人力资源（EHR）、工程（ENG）和社会、行为和经济科学（SBE）联合支持。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。

Humans have remarkably plastic brains; adaptations for learning are perhaps the hallmark evolutionary trait of our species. This project will examine learning-related aspects of brain organization in great ape species that are close evolutionary relatives of humans – bonobos and chimpanzees – using noninvasive tests and archived brain samples and images. The work focuses on two learned skills that were important factors in human evolution: tool use and language. One analysis will use archived brain images from previous studies combined with new behavioral tests of skill learning. Apes will receive training in evolutionarily-relevant, naturalistic tool use skills, and the investigators will measure how individual variation in brain organization is related to skill learning. Another analysis will examine brain organization in apes that have and have not undergone training to use language-like systems, including hand signs and pictogram boards. The investigators will examine how language training is related to learning-related changes in the brain. Results are expected to shed light on probable brain changes during the evolution of the human species, provide insight on neural mechanisms of real-world skill learning in primate species closely related to humans, and facilitate understanding of how individual variation in brain structure is related to individual variation in behavior and cognition. This project will use a cross-disciplinary, comparative, integrative approach to examine how individual variation in brain anatomy influences learning trajectories in the context of real-world, evolutionarily relevant skills. It also examines the interaction between acquired, plastic changes in the brain resulting from learning during an individual’s lifetime, and evolved, heritable changes resulting from natural selection across generations. The project brings together methodological and theoretical approaches from neuroscience and neuroimaging, anthropology, archaeology, and animal behavior. Identification of plastic changes resulting from language training in great apes will provide a new window on the evolution of language circuits in our own species and will for the first time add crucial neurobiological information to landmark, long-running language-training studies in apes. Additionally, individual variation in chimpanzee and bonobo brain anatomy will be linked to differences in learning trajectories in two evolutionarily-relevant, real-world skills: simple stone tool knapping and nut cracking. Together, this research will provide important new insight on brain changes underlying acquisition of learned skills both on the timescale of individual lifetimes (plasticity) and the timescale of evolved, species-level change (adaptation).This project is funded by the Integrated Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) program, which is jointly supported by the Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).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.