Functional Neural Connectivity During Social Bonding in Voles

描述（由申请人提供）：附属神经内分泌学的进展表明，催产素在核心社会行为神经回路中起作用，以促进哺乳动物的社会纽带。然而，仅仅知道催产素的作用位点并不能揭示它在实际同种相互作用中的作用模式。我们的长期目标是阐明催产素等社会神经化学物质如何在体内调节社会奖励和社会信息处理的神经回路功能-建立社会联系的关键因素。这里的目的是使用慢性电极植入在特定的边缘系统网站已知调制催产素，以确定这些电路之间的正常功能神经连接在草原田鼠的亲和行为。我们的中心假设是，社会互动同步电生理活动的社会奖励和社会信息通路的组成部分，从而增强其功能的连接。我们的基本原理是，一旦我们知道这些大脑区域在社会联系事件中通常是如何相互交流的，我们就可以使用药理学技术来测试关于催产素体内调节功能的特定假设。我们将通过追求两个具体目标来研究我们的假设。首先，我们将确定功能性神经连接的社会奖励途径的组成部分，在形成和表达的社会债券在女性草原田鼠。第二，我们将确定在社会联系的形成和表达过程中，社会信息处理和奖励途径的组成部分之间的功能性神经连接。我们的建议的重要性在于它开创了一个全新的 田鼠社会联结研究中的一项调查，询问催产素如何调节联结过程中的神经活动。我们在清醒的动物中植入微电极，将使关于田鼠模式生物中社会（甚至非社会）行为机制的新问题和假设成为可能。因此，它有可能改变我们对社会信号和神经肽（如催产素）如何协调负责社会信息处理和奖励的神经资源的思考方式。最后，这项研究可能有助于指导人类健康的应用，因为鼻内催产素现在正在临床试验中作为改善几种精神健康疾病的社会功能障碍的治疗方法，尽管我们对催产素如何在大脑中发挥作用以促进社会认知的理解尚未完全阐明。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Advances in affiliative neuroendocrinology have revealed that oxytocin acts within a core social behavior neural circuit to facilitate social bondig in mammals. Simply knowing oxytocin's sites of action, however, does not reveal its mode of action during actual conspecific interactions. Our long-term goal is to illuminate how social neurochemicals like oxytocin modulate in vivo the function of neural circuits underlying social reward and social information processing - key elements in establishing social bonds. The objective here is to use chronic electrode implants in specific limbic system sites known to be modulated by oxytocin to determine the normal functional neural connectivity between these circuits during affiliative behaviors in prairie voles. Our central hypothesis is that social interactions synchronize electrophysiological activity across components of the social reward and social information pathways, thus enhancing their functional connectivity. Our rationale is that, once we know how these brain areas normally communicate with one another during social bonding events, we can use pharmacological techniques to test specific hypotheses about the in vivo modulatory function of oxytocin. We will investigate our hypothesis by pursuing two specific aims. First, we will determine functional neural connectivity within components of the social reward pathway during the formation and expression of a social bond in female prairie voles. Second, we will determine functional neural connectivity between components of the social information processing and reward pathways during the formation and expression of a social bond. Our proposal's significance lies in the fact that it initiates an entirely new line of investigation in vole social bonding research that asks about how oxytocin modulates neural activity during bonding. Our use of implanted microelectrodes in awake animals will enable new questions and hypotheses about the mechanisms of social (or even nonsocial) behaviors in the vole model organism. Thus, it holds the potential to change the way we think about how social signals and neuropeptides like oxytocin coordinate the neural resources responsible for social information processing and reward during affiliative interactions. Finally, this research can potentially help guide applications to human health, since intranasal oxytocin is now in clinical trials as a treatment for ameliorating social dysfunctions in several mental health disorders, even though our understanding of how oxytocin works in the brain to promote social cognition is not yet fully elucidated.