Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Social Function in Alcohol Use Disorders

项目摘要 尽管酒精使用障碍（AUD）患者的社会缺陷广泛存在， 充分的社会功能对治疗的基础重要性（通常直接取决于群体和 其他人际互动），AUD中社交障碍的行为和神经基础仍然存在 替补演员理解这种损伤的一个重大挑战是将社会学的高级理论联系起来， 行为和认知与大脑电路执行的计算。具体来说，大脑是如何 将社会感知转化为社会评价，这种评价如何影响社会行为？我们 我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 使用一种基于计算模型的方法。 在这个建议中，我们假设酒精使用障碍受试者的社会障碍表现在 对潜在社会伙伴的看法以及因此赋予他们的价值，影响到 结果.通过评估成熟的经济游戏，我们将量化具有AUD的受试者如何分配奖励 在不同的社会背景下和匿名的伴侣之间。我们将操纵这两种激励机制 与主体如何在自己和各种社会伙伴之间分配货币资源有关， 通过采用经验证的社会感知量化措施，了解合作伙伴本身的特点。到 为了解开支持上述选择的神经机制，我们将使用功能性MRI来评估大脑区域 我们假设其活动将随货币决策参数变化。 因此，我们寻求扩大我们对社会行为背后的计算和电路的理解。 此外，我们相信，基于模型的理解这些行为和神经回路可能有一天 指导对酒精使用障碍患者的社会功能进行更稳健和定量的评估， 对临床评估和治疗的可能影响。

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.