Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Social Function in Alcohol Use Disorders

项目摘要 尽管在酒精使用障碍(AUD)患者中普遍存在社交缺陷 充分的社会功能对治疗的基础性重要性(这通常直接取决于团体和 其他人际互动)，AUDS患者社交障碍的行为和神经基础仍然存在 未得到充分研究。理解这种障碍的一个重大挑战是将高级的社会理论 通过大脑回路进行计算的行为和认知。具体地说，大脑如何 将社会认知转化为社会评价，这种评价如何影响社会行为？我们 建议利用经济理论和认知神经科学的最新发展来弥合这一鸿沟 使用计算性的、基于模型的方法。 在这项建议中，我们假设有酒精使用障碍的受试者的社会障碍明显表现在 对潜在社会伙伴的感知和由此分配给他们的价值，影响 结果。通过评估成熟的经济游戏，我们将量化有AUDS的受试者如何分配回报 在不同的社会背景下，他们和匿名伴侣之间的关系。我们将操纵这两项激励措施 与受试者如何在他们自己和各种社会伙伴之间分配货币资源有关，以及 通过采用有效的社会知觉量化测量，了解合作伙伴自身的特点。至 解开支持上述选择的神经机制，我们将使用功能磁共振成像来评估大脑区域 我们假设，他们的活动将随着货币决定的不同而发生参数变化。 因此，我们试图扩大我们对社交行为背后的计算和回路的理解。 此外，我们相信，对这些行为和神经回路的基于模型的理解可能有一天 指导对酒精使用障碍患者的社会功能进行更有力和更定量的评估， 可能对临床评估和治疗产生影响。

Project Summary Despite the widespread nature of social deficits in patients with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and the foundational importance of adequate social function for therapies (which often directly depend upon group and other interpersonal interactions), the behavioral and neural basis of social impairments in AUDs remains understudied. A significant challenge for understanding such impairments is to link high-level theories of social behavior and cognition with the computations performed by brain circuits. Specifically, how does the brain translate social perception into social valuation, and how does such valuation influence social actions? We propose to leverage recent developments in economic theory and cognitive neuroscience to bridge this divide using a computational, model-based approach. In this proposal, we hypothesize that social impairments in subjects with alcohol use disorders are manifest in the perception of potential social partners and the value consequently assigned to them, impacting the actions that result. By evaluating well-established economic games, we will quantify how subjects with AUDs divide rewards between themselves and anonymous partners in different social contexts. We will manipulate both incentives related to how subjects divide monetary resources between themselves and various social partners, as well as the characteristics of the partners themselves by employing validated quantitative measures of social perception. To unravel the neural mechanisms supporting the above choices, we will use functional MRI to assess brain regions whose activity we hypothesize will vary parametrically with monetary decisions. We thus seek to broaden our understanding of the computations and circuits underlying social behavior. Moreover, we believe that a model-based understanding of these behaviors and neural circuits may someday guide more robust and quantitative assessments of social function in patients with alcohol use disorders, with possible implications for both clinical evaluation and treatment.