Dynamic hypothalamic facilitation of group cohesion

下丘脑动态促进群体凝聚力

• 批准号: 2310626
• 负责人: Aubrey Kelly
• 金额: $ 126.56万
• 依托单位: Emory University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-06-15 至 2027-05-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2310626&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dynamic; hypothalamic; facilitation; group; cohesion

Some animals live in large communities comprised mostly of individuals that are not related to them. In these cases, animals will interact daily with unrelated individuals (e.g. friends, acquaintances, or strangers) across various social settings. Individuals that successfully navigate group living are considered prosocial compared to antisocial individuals that do not navigate group living with great success. Despite the importance of successful group social interaction, little is known about how the brain promotes prosocial behavior to allow individuals to enter a new social group and maintain group cohesion. The answers to these questions remain unknown because most neuroscience studies examine social behaviors between just two individuals that are either related (e.g. parent-offspring) or mates. For most animals, however, social interactions often occur in complex settings. This project uses a unique animal model, the spiny mouse, which lives in large mixed-sex groups comprised of related and unrelated individuals. This research will determine how the brain promotes initiation of contact with a new group, facilitates positive interactions with new groups members, and reinforces positive behaviors that enable group stability. Insights gained from this research will be foundational for examining how the brain promotes successful navigation of complex social environments and how individuals are able to thrive in groups, maintaining healthy relationships leading to stable communities. The studies will also incorporate outreach programs to work with children and adults at science festivals and develop a new outreach program called "After Dark" which will be a museum-based program that highlights group living animals.The brain can organize adaptive behavioral responses to complex social environments, yet we know little about how this is achieved, particularly when the social environment is a complex society of numerous interacting individuals. Indeed, within the realm of social neuroscience, most studies probe neural circuits underlying dyadic interactions. As a result, we know very little about how the brain modulates behavior in group contexts. To respond to an ever-changing social environment, central brain “hubs” are likely necessary for organizing systematic responses to dynamic inputs. The paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) is a multifunctional region that modulates physiological processes and behaviors that range from affiliation and parental care to aggression and anxiety. Although we know the PVN can produce numerous outputs, the downstream targets that the PVN acts on to produce them is less well understood. This project will test the hypothesis that hypothalamic suppression of fear neural circuitry facilitates indiscriminate social approach behavior to allow for the formation of new groups, and that hypothalamic promotion of reward circuit-mediated behavior reinforces affiliation in complex social environments to facilitate group cohesion. The researchers will use chemo- and functional-genetic approaches, along with a novel organism – the highly social spiny mouse – to identify neural circuits that promote social cohesion in complex groups. DREADDs and fiber photometry will be paired with machine learning and social network analysis of complex groups that will produce a neurobehavioral dataset that will provide insight into the brain mechanisms that make group living possible.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.

一些动物生活在由与它们没有血缘关系的个体组成的大型社区中。在这些情况下，动物每天都会在不同的社会环境中与不相关的人(如朋友、熟人或陌生人)互动。成功地引导群体生活的个体被认为是亲社会的，而不成功引导群体生活的反社会个体则被认为是反社会的。尽管成功的群体社会互动很重要，但人们对大脑如何促进亲社会行为以使个人进入新的社会群体并维持群体凝聚力知之甚少。这些问题的答案仍然未知，因为大多数神经科学研究只研究两个有亲属关系(例如，父母-子女)或配偶的人之间的社会行为。然而，对于大多数动物来说，社会互动往往发生在复杂的环境中。这个项目使用了一种独特的动物模型--多刺小鼠，它生活在由相关和不相关的个体组成的大型混合性别群体中。这项研究将确定大脑如何促进与新群体的接触，促进与新群体成员的积极互动，并加强使群体稳定的积极行为。从这项研究中获得的见解将是检验大脑如何促进复杂社会环境的成功导航，以及个人如何能够在群体中茁壮成长，维持健康的关系从而形成稳定的社区的基础。这些研究还将包括在科学节上与儿童和成年人合作的推广计划，并开发一个新的推广计划，名为“天黑后”，这将是一个以博物馆为基础的计划，重点介绍成群的活动物。大脑可以组织对复杂社会环境的适应性行为反应，但我们对此知之甚少，特别是当社会环境是一个由许多相互作用的人组成的复杂社会时。事实上，在社会神经科学领域，大多数研究都在探索潜在的二元性相互作用的神经回路。因此，我们对大脑如何在群体环境中调节行为知之甚少。为了应对不断变化的社会环境，中央大脑的“中枢”很可能是组织对动态输入的系统反应所必需的。下丘脑室旁核(PVN)是一个多功能区域，调节从从属关系、父母照顾到攻击和焦虑等各种生理过程和行为。尽管我们知道PVN可以产生许多产量，但PVN作用于生产这些产品的下游目标还不太清楚。这个项目将测试一个假设，即下丘脑抑制恐惧神经回路促进了不分青红皂白的社交接近行为，从而允许形成新的群体，以及下丘脑促进奖励回路介导的行为加强了复杂社会环境中的联系，以促进群体凝聚力。研究人员将使用化学和功能遗传学方法，以及一种新的有机体--高度社会化的多刺小鼠--来识别在复杂群体中促进社会凝聚力的神经回路。DREADD和纤维光度学将与机器学习和复杂群体的社会网络分析相结合，将产生一个神经行为数据集，为洞察使群体生活成为可能的大脑机制提供洞察。该奖项反映了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。