Neural Representation of Learning Social Interactions in Non-Human Primates

非人类灵长类动物学习社交互动的神经表征

• 批准号: 10553102
• 负责人: Melissa C Franch
• 金额: $ 1.91万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10553102
• 关键词: Address; Affect; Animal Behavior; Animals; Area; Behavior; Behavioral; Brain; Brain region; Communication; Complex; Cues; Data; Decision Making; Environment; Event; Evolution; Experimental Designs; Eye; Feedback; Food; Head; Health; Human; Impairment; Individual; Intelligence; Investigation; Laboratories; Learning; Measures; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Methods; Monkeys; Motivation; Neurons; Performance; Population; Prefrontal Cortex; Primates; Probability; Process; Research; Rewards; Role; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Social Behavior; Social Concepts; Social Interaction; Structure; Testing; Texture; Therapeutic Intervention; Time; Visual; Visual Cortex; Visual Pathways; area V4; artificial neural network; autism spectrum disorder; base; body language; driving force; experimental study; extrastriate visual cortex; high reward; improved; neural; neural correlate; neural network; neuromechanism; neurophysiology; neuropsychiatric disorder; nonhuman primate; novel; novel strategies; prevent; response; restraint; sample fixation; social; social cognition; social cooperation; social deficits; social learning; support vector machine; targeted treatment; visual information; visual learning; visual processing; visual tracking; wireless

Project Summary/Abstract. Visually guided social behavior, specifically cooperation, is one of the primary forces driving the evolution of intelligence and is critical to the health and survival of our species. Like humans, non-human primates also cooperate in natural and laboratory environments. Recent studies in the field of primate social neurophysiology show that neurons in different brain regions can encode socially relevant variables, such as reward and actions of self and other. However, cortical areas have not been studied simultaneously during social interaction, and therefore neural network computations of social cognition are not well understood. Furthermore, the neural correlates of learning advanced social concepts, such as cooperation, have not been studied and remain unknown. A major limitation preventing our understanding of the neural underpinnings of social cognition is the lack of a suitable framework to allow us to study how it emerges in real time from interactions among brain networks. Traditionally, examining the neural bases of social behavior in non-human primates has been performed using stationary experiments in a laboratory environment in which the head and body are restrained. However, it has become increasingly understood that studying the brain in spatially confined, artificial laboratory rigs poses severe limits on our capacity to understand the function of brain circuits. To overcome these limitations, I propose a novel approach using high-yield wireless neural recordings and eye tracking to study the cortical dynamics of social interactions across multiple cortical areas involved in processing visual information (mid-level visual cortex V4) and decision making (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) while two freely moving monkeys learn to cooperate for food reward. I hypothesize that learning social interactions will induce changes in 1) the encoding of socially relevant variables such as social visual cues and choice in each area and 2) functional connectivity between areas. To investigate this hypothesis, I will record animals' behaviors (Aim 1), and eye data and neural activity (Aim 2-3) simultaneously as they learn to cooperate under different conditions. While learning cooperation, I expect animal behaviors, such as the coordination of their actions, to improve (Aim 1). I also predict animal behaviors will be sensitive to reward value and fairness, showing less motivation to cooperate for small or unequal rewards, but will improve with learning (Aim 1). I anticipate the discovery of neural computations underlying social cognition within (Aim 2) and between brain areas (Aim 3) and that neural encoding of salient information, such as social visual cues and actions, will improve as animals learn to cooperate. This project provides a novel method and use of analyses to study learning social interactions. This research will further our understanding of the social brain by elucidating the role of neural networks underlying social cognition. Most importantly, the results of this investigation will provide long-term candidate brain areas and behaviors that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention in individuals suffering from social dysfunction.

项目概要/摘要。视觉引导的社会行为，特别是合作，是主要的 它是推动智能进化的力量，对我们物种的健康和生存至关重要。像人类一样， 非人类灵长类动物也在自然和实验室环境中合作。灵长类动物领域的最新研究 社会神经生理学表明，不同大脑区域的神经元可以编码社会相关变量， 作为自我和他人的奖励和行动。然而，在此期间，尚未同时研究皮质区域 社会互动，因此社会认知的神经网络计算还没有得到很好的理解。 此外，学习高级社会概念（如合作）的神经相关性还没有得到证实。 研究和保持未知。一个主要的限制，阻止我们了解的神经基础， 社会认知是缺乏一个合适的框架，使我们能够研究它是如何出现在真实的时间， 大脑网络之间的相互作用。传统上，研究非人类社会行为的神经基础 灵长类动物已经在实验室环境中使用固定实验进行， 身体受到限制。然而，人们越来越认识到，在空间上研究大脑， 封闭的人工实验室设备严重限制了我们理解大脑回路功能的能力。 为了克服这些限制，我提出了一种新的方法，使用高产量的无线神经记录和眼睛。 跟踪研究涉及处理的多个皮层区域的社会互动的皮层动力学 视觉信息（中层视觉皮层V4）和决策（背外侧前额叶皮层），而两个 自由活动的猴子学会合作以获得食物奖励。我假设学习社会交往 引起以下变化：1）社会相关变量的编码，如社会视觉线索和选择， （2）区域之间的功能连接。为了研究这个假设，我将记录动物的行为 (Aim 1），眼睛数据和神经活动（目标2-3）同时，因为他们学会了在不同的条件下合作 条件在学习合作的同时，我希望动物的行为，比如它们行动的协调， 改善（目标1）。我还预测动物的行为将对奖励价值和公平性敏感， 合作的动机，为小或不平等的回报，但将提高与学习（目标1）。我预计 发现大脑区域内（目标2）和大脑区域之间（目标3）的社会认知背后的神经计算， 当动物学习时，神经对显著信息的编码，如社会视觉线索和行为， 合作这个项目提供了一个新的方法和使用分析来研究学习社会互动。 这项研究将通过阐明神经网络的作用来进一步加深我们对社会大脑的理解 潜在的社会认知最重要的是，这项调查的结果将提供长期的候选人， 可以针对患有社交障碍的个人进行治疗干预的大脑区域和行为 功能障碍