Neural circuit mechanisms of social decision-making

社会决策的神经回路机制

• 批准号: EP/Y008804/1
• 负责人: Chunyu Duan
• 金额: $ 161.46万
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY008804%2F1
• 关键词: Neural; circuit; mechanisms; social; decision

To understand the neural mechanisms of decision-making, research has focused on how a single animal makes choices in a well controlled environment. However, real life decisions are rarely made by a single agent in isolation. Instead, decisions reflect dynamic interactions between multiple decision makers, and success depends on predicting the actions of others. Recent advances in computer vision make it feasible to monitor multiple animals with real-time video tracking, closed-loop task design; and extract features of behavioural motifs during social interactions. Taking advantage of this technology, we have developed a quantitative framework to study the neural circuit mechanisms of social decision-making in the mouse, where multiple mice engage in game theoretic interactions in an ethologically relevant social foraging task. To maximise reward and social utility, animals should not only track the current position and choice of their opponent, but also predict their future actions. We use quantitative analysis and modelling of multi-player behaviour to compare animals' actual strategies to these optimal solutions. Converging evidence have implicated the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the amygdala in these computations. But many questions remain about the detailed and causal contributions of the PFC-amygdala circuits. The latent variables in our models can be mapped to internal states of the animal to generate testable predictions for neural recordings and constrain interpretation of perturbations of the PFC-amygdala circuit. We will use multi-regional and pathway-specific methods of in vivo imaging, electrophysiology and optogenetics in our quantitative social foraging task to test how affective, reward, and social information within and between PFC and amygdala facilitate agentspecific representation in the brain. This will in turn expose general principles of how social animals build a model of the world during adaptive and goal-directed behaviour.

为了了解决策的神经机制，研究集中在一个单一的动物如何在一个良好的控制环境中做出选择。然而，真实的生活中的决定很少是由一个单独的代理人孤立地做出的。相反，决策反映了多个决策者之间的动态互动，成功取决于预测他人的行动。计算机视觉的最新进展使得通过实时视频跟踪、闭环任务设计来监控多个动物成为可能;并在社交互动过程中提取行为图案的特征。利用这项技术，我们已经开发了一个定量的框架来研究小鼠的社会决策的神经回路机制，其中多只小鼠在行为学相关的社会觅食任务中进行博弈论互动。为了最大化奖励和社会效用，动物不仅要跟踪对手的当前位置和选择，还要预测它们未来的行动。我们使用定量分析和多玩家行为的建模来比较动物的实际策略与这些最佳解决方案。越来越多的证据表明，前额叶皮层（PFC）和杏仁核参与了这些计算。但是，PFC-杏仁核回路的细节和因果关系仍然存在许多问题。我们的模型中的潜在变量可以映射到动物的内部状态，以生成可测试的神经记录预测和PFC-杏仁核回路扰动的约束解释。我们将在我们的定量社会觅食任务中使用体内成像，电生理学和光遗传学的多区域和特定路径的方法来测试PFC和杏仁核内和之间的情感，奖励和社会信息如何促进大脑中的代理特异性代表。这将反过来揭示社会动物如何在适应和目标导向行为中建立世界模型的一般原则。