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

人类的大脑具有惊人的可塑性；学习适应能力可能是我们人类进化的标志特征。这个项目将使用非侵入性测试和存档的大脑样本和图像来研究与学习相关的大脑组织方面的大型类人猿物种，这些物种是人类的近亲--矮黑猩猩和黑猩猩。这项工作的重点是两项习得的技能，这两项技能是人类进化的重要因素：工具使用和语言。其中一项分析将使用以前研究的存档大脑图像，并结合新的技能学习行为测试。类人猿将接受与进化相关的自然主义工具使用技能方面的培训，研究人员将测量大脑组织中的个体差异如何与技能学习相关。另一项分析将研究类人猿的大脑组织，这些类人猿已经和没有接受过使用类似语言的系统的培训，包括手势和象形板。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。这些结果有望揭示人类物种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提供现实世界技能学习的神经机制，并有助于理解大脑结构的个体差异与行为和认知的个体差异是如何相关的。这个项目将使用一种跨学科的、比较的、综合的方法来研究大脑解剖中的个体差异如何在现实世界、进化相关的技能的背景下影响学习轨迹。它还研究了一个人一生中学习导致的后天大脑可塑性变化与世代自然选择导致的进化可遗传变化之间的相互作用。该项目汇集了神经科学和神经成像、人类学、考古学和动物行为学的方法论和理论方法。识别大猩猩语言训练产生的可塑性变化将为我们自己物种的语言回路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语言训练研究增加关键的神经生物学信息。此外，黑猩猩和矮黑猩猩大脑解剖结构的个体差异将与两种与进化相关的真实世界技能的学习轨迹的差异联系在一起：简单的石器打结和坚果打碎。总而言之，这项研究将提供重要的新见解，从个体生命的时间尺度(可塑性)和进化的物种水平变化的时间尺度(适应)来理解大脑变化。该项目由理解神经和认知系统的综合策略(NCS)计划资助，该计划由计算机和信息科学与工程(CEISE)、教育和人力资源(EHR)、工程(ENG)和社会、行为、这一奖项反映了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。

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.