Modulation of Human Reward Circuitry by Social Factors

描述（由申请人提供）：有动机或目标导向的行为通常遵守简单的强化规则。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。对非人类动物的基础研究，以及一系列人类神经影像学研究的补充，已经描绘出了奖励相关学习和动机行为的基本神经回路。这些研究已经明确指出了连接皮层结构和基底神经节的回路，特别是它的输入单位--纹状体，一个在连接性和功能性方面都不相同的结构--作为处理运动和动机信息的接口。但目前尚不清楚 这些以简单行为为特征的基本机制（例如，学习按钮按压导致奖励）扩展到社会中通常显示的更复杂的动机行为（例如，学习一个人是值得信赖的，互动将导致奖励）。社会信息的可用性和社会互动的前景是挑战当前大脑如何处理奖励和惩罚反馈以及如何使用这些信息做出决策的思想的因素。 本提案的目标是使用功能磁共振成像来研究社会因素如何调节奖励相关处理的基本行为和神经机制，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驱。具体来说，拟议的研究试图建立在一个坚实的和现有的研究基础上奖励相关的处理的神经回路第一：建立一个简单的任务模仿动物研究的行为和神经相关性，第二：添加一个社会组件到一个类似的任务，以调查重叠的机制。这种方法允许一种翻译方法，在未来的研究中，也可以进一步扩展到发育（例如，在青春期来自社交网络的社交反馈的作用）和临床环境（例如，自闭症观察学习中的社会反馈）。拟议的研究将探讨两个目标。 具体目标1-我们将研究如何社会相关的反馈，如奖励反馈，从同龄人的社会网络，是在大脑中处理，以及如何将其与非社会反馈。 具体目标2-我们将研究社会相关的反馈如何创造社会期望，影响奖励相关的学习机制，如果这些机制不受非社会反馈。 该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的作用的认识基础上，以探索社会动机的前因和后果，作为了解未来社会行为如何在临床疾病中分解的平台。

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.