Physiological Correlates And Neural Mechanisms Of Vocal

Z01 HD 001123-13 LCE和Z01 HD 001124-13 LCE是共同研究灵长类听觉交流的伙伴项目。这些研究的总体目标是从发育、神经机制、内分泌因素和社会背景等方面全面了解灵长类听觉交流。两种非人类灵长类动物，松鼠猴和普通绒猴是主要的研究对象，并在适当的情况下从其他物种收集额外的数据。该项目先前的工作表明，婴儿哭声的功能和声学等价物的产生是由位于大脑皮层额叶前中线的边缘皮质调节的，听觉皮质中的单个神经元件(颞上回)对物种特定发声的声学结构中的细微差异特别敏感，这表明在调节个体差异(声音特征)方面发挥着重要作用。对绒猴内分泌机制的研究表明，在婴儿取回测试中，内源性催乳素水平与携带时间相关，通过使用溴隐亭(一种多巴胺激动剂)减少催乳素会干扰婴儿取回。使用一种非侵入性的方法从松鼠猴的社会群体中收集尿样表明，当婴儿也存在于该物种中时，催乳素也会升高。在松鼠猴群中测试了积极玩耍的青少年对成年压力水平的影响，皮质醇(一种衡量压力的指标)的升高与玩耍的青少年的存在有关。新的发现是：(A)免疫细胞化学处理c-fos基因的蛋白产物Fos(c-fos基因的蛋白质产物)在婴幼儿、成年恒河猴和成年松鼠猴的脑切片中的表达，经过一段时间的强劲发声后，发现在下丘脑、视前区、中脑导水管周围灰质和扣带回前回(参与松鼠猴成年发声的相关区域)，Fos的表达具有很高的可靠性；(B)对人类父母及其婴儿进行的合作研究表明，父母可以从包括陌生婴儿的哭声在内的有声资料库中选择自己的婴儿的哭声，而且可靠性很高。对其中一些父母的大脑进行成像(使用大胆的功能磁共振成像)，同时将父母自己的婴儿哭声作为刺激，发现母亲的大脑比父亲更活跃，母亲大脑中一些被激活的区域在父亲身上并没有激活。

Z01 HD 001123-13 LCE and Z01 HD 001124-13 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 in marmosets 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. Using a method for collecting urine samples noninvasively from social groups of squirrel monkeys has shown that prolactin is elevated when infants are present in this species, as well. The impact of actively playing juveniles on adult stress levels has been tested in squirrel monkey groups, with elevated cortisol (a measure of stress) associated with the presence of playing juveniles. New findings are (a) immunocytochemical processing for expression of Fos (the protein product of the c-fos gene) in brain sections from infant and adult marmosets and adult squirrel monkeys following a period of robust vocalizing revealed label in the hypothalamus, preoptic area, periaqueductal gray of the midbrain, and in the anterior cingulate gyrus (which has been implicated in production of adult vocalizations in squirrel monkeys); (b) collaborative studies involving human parents and their infants showed that parents can select their own infant's cry from an audio library including the cries of unfamiliar infants with high reliability. Imaging the brains of some of these parents (using BOLD fMRI) while presenting the parents' own infant cries as stimuli revealed that mothers had greater activation than fathers and some of the areas of the mothers' brains that were activated were not activated in fathers.