Modulation of Human Reward Circuitry by Social Factors

描述(由申请者提供)：动机或目标导向的行为通常遵循简单的强化规则。也就是说，导致积极后果的行动往往会以更高的频率重复，而导致消极后果的行动往往会被避免。在非人类动物身上进行的基础研究，加上一系列人类神经成像研究，描绘了与奖励相关的学习和动机行为背后的基本神经回路。这类研究特别确定了连接皮质结构和基底神经节的回路，特别是它的输入单位--纹状体--就连接和功能而言是一种不同的结构--作为处理运动和动机信息的接口。然而，目前还不清楚 这些以简单行为为特征的基本机制(例如，了解到按下按钮会导致奖励)如何扩展到社会中通常表现出的更复杂的动机行为(例如，了解到个人值得信任，互动将导致奖励)。社会信息的可获得性和社会互动的前景是挑战大脑如何处理奖惩反馈以及如何利用这些信息做出决定的现有思维的因素。 这项建议的目的是使用功能磁共振成像来研究社会因素如何调节与奖励相关的加工的基本行为和神经机制，以此作为了解社会对动机行为的影响如何影响幸福感和心理健康的先导。具体地说，建议的研究试图建立在与奖励相关的神经回路的坚实和现有的研究基础上，首先：建立一个模仿动物研究的简单任务的行为和神经关联；第二：在类似的任务中增加一个社会因素，以调查机制的重叠。这种方法允许一种翻译方法，在未来的研究中，还可以进一步扩展到发展阶段(例如，在青春期来自社会网络的社会反馈的作用)和临床环境(例如，自闭症观察性学习期间的社会反馈)。拟议的研究将调查两个目标。 具体目标1-我们将调查社交相关反馈，如来自同伴社交网络的奖励反馈，是如何在大脑中处理的，以及它与非社交反馈的比较。 具体目标2-我们将调查社会相关反馈如何产生社会期望，从而影响与奖励相关的学习机制，以及这种机制是否不受非社会反馈的影响。 提案中概述的研究将建立在我们对皮质纹状体系统在简单动机行为中所起作用的知识的基础上，以探索社会动机的前因和后果，作为一个平台，了解未来临床障碍中的社会行为是如何崩溃的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Motivated or goal-directed behaviors often abide by simple rules of reinforcement. That is, actions that lead to positive consequences tend to be repeated at a greater frequency, while actions that lead to negative consequences tend to be avoided. Fundamental research in non-human animals, complemented by an array of human neuroimaging studies, has delineated a basic neurocircuitry underlying reward-related learning and motivated behaviors. Such research has specifically identified circuits linking cortical structures and the basal ganglia, particularly its input unit - the striatum, a heterogeneous structure in terms of connectivity and functionality - as an interface for the processing of motor and motivational information. However, it is unclear how these basic mechanisms characterized by simple behaviors (e.g., learning that a button press leads to a reward) extend to more complex motivated behaviors typically displayed in society (e.g., learning that an individual is trustworthy and interactions will lead to rewards). The availability of social information and the prospects of social interactions are factors that challenge current thinking of how the brain processes reward and punishment feedback and how it uses such information to make decisions. The goal of this proposal is to use fMRI to investigate how social factors modulate the basic behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying reward-related processing as a precursor to understanding how social influences on motivated behavior impact well-being and mental health. Specifically, the proposed studies attempt to build on a solid and existing research foundation on the neural circuitry of reward-related processing by first: establishing the behavior and neural correlates of a simple task modeled after animal research and second: adding a social component to a similar task to investigate overlap in mechanisms. This approach allows for a translational method that, in future research, can also be further extended to developmental (e.g., the role of social feedback from a social network during adolescence) and clinical settings (e.g., social feedback during observational learning in autism). The proposed studies will investigate two aims. Specific Aim 1 - We will investigate how socially relevant feedback, such as reward feedback from a social network of peers, is processed in the brain and how it compares to non-social feedback. Specific Aim 2 - We will investigate how socially relevant feedback creates social expectations that influence mechanisms of reward-related learning and if such mechanisms are unaffected by non-social feedback. The studies outlined in the proposal will build on our knowledge of the role of corticostriatal systems during simple motivated behavior to probe the antecedents and consequences of social motivation, as a platform to understand how social behavior breaks down in clinical disorders in the future.