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

人类的大脑具有显著的可塑性;学习的适应性可能是我们物种进化的标志性特征。 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（倭黑猩猩和黑猩猩）大脑组织的学习相关方面。 这项工作的重点是人类进化中的两个重要因素：工具使用和语言。 其中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。 猿类将接受进化相关的自然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如何与技能学习相关。 另一项分析将研究猿类的大脑组织，这些猿类接受过和没有接受过使用类似语言系统的训练，包括手势和象形图板。 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进化过程中可能的大脑变化，为与人类密切相关的灵长类物种的真实技能学习的神经机制提供见解，并有助于理解大脑结构的个体差异如何与行为和认知的个体差异相关。该项目将使用跨学科，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的学习轨迹，进化相关技能。 它还研究了在个体一生中学习所导致的大脑中获得的可塑性变化与几代人之间自然选择所导致的进化的可遗传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和理论方法。识别由类人猿语言训练引起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破碎。 总之，这项研究将提供重要的新的见解，大脑的变化，潜在的收购学习技能，无论是在时间尺度上的个人生活（可塑性）和进化的时间尺度，物种水平的变化该项目由理解神经和认知系统（NCS）计划的综合战略资助，该计划由计算机和信息科学与工程（CISE），教育和人力资源（EHR），工程（ENG）和社会，行为和经济科学（SBE）。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

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.