Dissecting Sensorimotor Pathways Underlying Social Interactions: Models, Circuits, and Behavior

项目摘要/摘要 整个动物界的社会互动，从求偶仪式到攻击性 口语对话的互动是惊人的复杂-它们必然涉及背部- 通过多种感觉模式传递的神经系统之间的双向反馈 以及每种动物的行为。这一领域的典型实验只观察到一小部分 在任何神经元回路中的活动，然后仅在非常有限的行为条件下。 为了克服这一限制，拟议的研究利用了紧凑的神经系统 果蝇，结合其丰富的遗传工具，研究动态 行为互动和详细的神经机制是雄性求爱的基础 和雌性。该项目结合了对行为、神经回路的无偏见测量 操作，行为动物的神经记录，以及复杂的计算模型。 具体目标包括：i)阐明大脑在 通过绘制男性和女性相互作用下的感觉-运动转换图进行求偶 通过定量行为分析和预测模型的生成随时间推移；二) 将模型与神经扰动相结合，以映射控制链路的底层电路 感觉输入和行为之间的关系；以及，iii)测试神经控制模型 通过监测经历虚构求偶刺激的行为动物的神经活动来实现求偶 在虚拟现实设备中。这项工作将极大地促进我们对两个 相互作用的大脑处理和传递信息，并将揭示神经的一般原理 回路功能将为更复杂的动物中感觉运动整合的研究提供信息， 例如啮齿动物和人类。该项目还将产生新的实验和理论 研究社会行为的工具。最后，它将阐明出现问题的机制。 几种障碍，包括自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)，其中感觉知觉 从运动输出中解脱出来-这些障碍对认知有深远的影响 并对公众健康产生重大影响。

Project Summary/Abstract Social interactions across the animal kingdom, from courtship rituals and aggressive interactions to spoken conversation, are wondrously complex - they necessarily involve back- and-forth feedback between nervous systems transmitted through multiple sensory modalities and each animal's behavior. Typical experiments in this field observe only a tiny fraction of the activity in any neuronal circuit, and then only under a very limited range of behavioral conditions. To overcome this limitation, the proposed research leverages the compact nervous system of Drosophila melanogaster, combined with its wealth of genetic tools, to study the dynamic behavioral interactions and detailed neural mechanisms that underlie courtship between males and females. The project combines unbiased measurement of behavior, neural circuit manipulations, neural recordings in behaving animals, and sophisticated computational models. The specific aims include: i) elucidating the computations that the brain performs during courtship by mapping the sensorimotor transformations underlying male and female interactions over time via quantitative behavioral assays and the generation of predictive models; ii) combining models with neural perturbations to map the underlying circuits that govern the link between sensory inputs and behaviors; And, iii) testing the models of neural control during courtship by monitoring neural activity in behaving animals experiencing fictive courtship stimuli in a virtual-reality apparatus. This work will substantially advance our understanding of how two interacting brains process and transfer information, and will uncover general principles of neural circuit function that will inform studies of sensorimotor integration in more complex animals, such as rodents and humans. The project will also produce new experimental and theoretical tools for studying social behaviors. Finally, it will shed light on the mechanisms that go awry in several disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), in which sensory perception becomes disentangled from motor outputs – these disorders have profound effects on cognitive well-being and a major impact on public health.