Brain, Gene, and Environment Interactions in the Ontogeny of Early Helping Behavior

早期帮助行为个体发育中的大脑、基因和环境相互作用

• 批准号: 457116239
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Claudia Buß, Ph.D.
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Psychologie IV (Entwicklungs- und Kognitionspsychologie)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/457116239?language=en
• 关键词: Brain; Gene; Environment; Interactions; Ontogeny

Infants’ helping behavior is one of the earliest and best documented (pro)social behaviors in human development. Thus, the ontogenetic foundations of early helping are essential to our understanding of human unique capacities to care for and collaborate with each other. To date, the research on early helping behavior is mostly centered around psychological processes involved in the ontogeny and actual genesis of early helping, while critical determinants which precede humans’ earliest prosocial attainments (i.e., brain development, genetic makeup, and early environmental influences) and their interaction are not well understood. The overarching goal of the present study is to gain a better understanding of the association between early helping behavior and (1) infants’ brain development, and how (2) genetic and (3) environmental factors influence the development of critical brain networks associated with infants’ earliest prosocial attainments. Specifically, we propose an add-on study to an ongoing (and already funded) prospective longitudinal cohort study that includes 1) multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain in newborn and 1-year-old infants, (2) infant DNA samples, and (3) a behavioral observation of mother-infant interaction at 6 months of age. In this proposed add-on study, we will characterize infants’ helping behavior and the attainment of critical developmental skills (infants’ understanding of others’ needs, assessed in an eye-tracking paradigm, infants’ fine and gross motor abilities, and infants’ social interaction skills) that underlie the early development of helping behavior at 15 month-of-age. In addition, we will assess maternal socialization of helping behavior at 12-month-of-age. This add-on study will allow us to investigate the association between infants’ neural connectivity within a prosocial neural network (at 12 months) and its developmental trajectory within the first year of life (newborn to 12 months) with the development of early helping behavior and critical developmental skills associated with early helping behavior. Furthermore, we will test targeted genetic (i.e., polygenic score for cognitive empathy) and environmental factors (i.e., supportive social interaction with the mother at 6 and 12 months) that may be associated with infants’ brain development and, in consequence, the early ontogeny of helping behavior. This study will give us unprecedented insights into the determinants of human earliest prosocial capacities at the level of the brain, gene, and environment, as well as the interaction between these different levels.

婴儿的帮助行为是人类发展过程中最早、记录最多的社会行为之一。因此，早期帮助的个体发育基础对于我们理解人类相互关心和合作的独特能力至关重要。到目前为止，关于早期帮助行为的研究大多集中在早期帮助的个体发生和实际起源所涉及的心理过程，而对人类最早的亲社会成就之前的关键决定因素(即大脑发育、基因构成和早期环境影响)及其相互作用还没有很好的了解。本研究的总体目标是更好地了解早期帮助行为与(1)婴儿大脑发育之间的联系，以及(2)遗传和(3)环境因素如何影响与婴儿最早亲社会成就相关的关键大脑网络的发展。具体地说，我们建议对正在进行的(已经得到资助的)前瞻性纵向队列研究进行一项附加研究，该研究包括1)新生儿和1岁婴儿大脑的多模式磁共振成像(MRI)，(2)婴儿DNA样本，以及(3)6个月大时母婴相互作用的行为观察。在这项拟议的附加研究中，我们将表征婴儿的帮助行为和关键发展技能的获得(婴儿对他人需求的理解，通过眼球跟踪范式进行评估，婴儿的精细和粗大运动能力，以及婴儿的社交技能)，这是15个月大时帮助行为早期发展的基础。此外，我们还将评估12个月大时母亲帮助行为的社会化程度。这项附加研究将使我们能够调查婴儿在亲社会神经网络中的神经连通性(12个月)及其在生命第一年(新生儿至12个月)内的发展轨迹与早期帮助行为的发展以及与早期帮助行为相关的关键发展技能之间的关系。此外，我们将测试可能与婴儿大脑发育相关的目标遗传因素(即认知共情的多基因评分)和环境因素(即6个月和12个月时与母亲的支持性社交互动)，从而测试帮助行为的早期个体发育。这项研究将给我们前所未有的洞察人类早期亲社会能力的大脑、基因和环境水平的决定因素，以及这些不同水平之间的相互作用。