Physiological Correlates and Neural Mechanisms of Vocal Communication

Z01 HD 01123-10 LCE和Z01 HD 01124-10 LCE是合作项目，共同研究灵长类动物的听觉交流。这些研究的总体目标是从发育、神经机制、内分泌因素和社会环境等方面全面了解灵长类动物的听觉交流。两种非人类灵长类动物，松鼠猴和普通狨猴，是研究的主要对象，并在适当情况下从其他物种收集额外数据。这个项目之前的工作已经表明，人类婴儿哭声的功能和声学等效声音的产生是由边缘脑调节的。位于大脑皮层额叶前中线的皮层，以及听觉皮层（颞上回）中的单个神经元素对物种特异性发声的声学结构的细微差异特别敏感，这表明在调节个体差异(？声乐签名?)。内分泌机制的研究表明，在婴儿取回试验中，内源性催乳素水平与携带时间相关，并且通过给予溴隐碱（一种多巴胺激动剂）来减少催乳素会扰乱婴儿取回。2000财年的新发现是：(a)幼年狨猴的玩耍行为通过外周使用阿片类激动剂硫酸吗啡增加，并通过阿片类拮抗剂纳洛酮减少；(b)成年雌性松鼠猴的催乳素水平与它们在群体中与幼猴的亲和行为数量显著相关(雌性松鼠猴在群体中充当“阿姨”？对该组中其他雌性所生的婴儿)；(c)一种新的大脑组织模式，即？大脑,沟通吗?假设在所有陆地脊椎动物中发现的一套神经结构，被证明直接参与发声，经历了一个保守的进化史，并在包括人类在内的许多物种中调解相同的发声功能类别。

Z01 HD 01123-10 LCE and Z01 HD 01124-10 LCE are companion projects that together investigate auditory communication in primates. The overall goal of these studies is to provide a comprehensive understanding of primate auditory communication in terms of development, neural mechanisms, endocrine factors, and social context. Two non-human primates, the squirrel monkey and common marmoset, are the main subjects of study, with additional data collected from other species where appropriate. Prior work in this project has shown that production of sounds that are the functional and acoustic equivalents of cry sounds in human infants are mediated by ?limbic? cortex located along the anterior midline of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, and that single neural elements in the auditory cortex (superior temporal gyrus) are particularly responsive to subtle differences in the acoustic structure of species-specific vocalizations, suggesting an important role in mediating individual differences (?vocal signatures?). Studies of endocrine mechanisms have shown that endogenous prolactin levels correlate with carrying time in infant retrieval tests, and that reducing prolactin by administering bromocryptine (a dopamine agonist) disrupts infant retrieval. New findings for FY2000 are (a) play behavior in juvenile marmosets is increased by administering the opiate agonist morphine sulfate peripherally, and decreased by the opiate antagonist naloxone; (b) prolactin levels of adult female squirrel monkeys are significantly associated with amount of affiliative behavior that they engage in with infants in their group (where the females serve as ?aunts? to the infants born to other females in the group); (c) a new model of brain organization, the ?communicating brain,? posits that a suite of neural structures found in all land vertebrates and shown to be directly involved in vocal production have experienced a conservative evolutionary history, and mediate the same functional categories of vocalizations in a wide range of species, including humans.