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揭示了催产素在哺乳动物的核心社会行为神经回路中作用，以促进社会纽带的形成。然而，仅仅知道催产素的作用部位并不能揭示它在实际的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交神经化学物质如何在体内调节潜在的社会奖励和社会信息处理的神经回路的功能--这是建立社会纽带的关键要素。本研究的目的是在已知受催产素调节的特定边缘系统部位植入慢性电极，以确定草原田鼠在附属行为过程中这些回路之间的正常功能神经连接。我们的中心假设是，社会交互作用使社会奖励和社会信息通路的各个组成部分的电生理活动同步，从而增强了它们的功能连接性。我们的理论基础是，一旦我们知道了在社交活动中这些大脑区域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体内催产素调节功能的特定假说。我们将通过追求两个具体目标来研究我们的假设。首先，我们将确定在雌性草原田鼠社会纽带的形成和表达过程中，社会奖励途径各组成部分内的功能神经连接。其次，我们将确定在社会纽带的形成和表达过程中，社会信息处理的组成部分和奖励路径之间的功能性神经连接。我们的提议的意义在于，它开创了一条全新的 田鼠社会结合研究中的调查，询问催产素如何在结合过程中调节神经活动。我们在清醒的动物身上使用植入的微电极，将使关于田鼠模型生物体中社会(甚至非社会)行为机制的新问题和新假设成为可能。因此，它有可能改变我们思考社交信号和催产素等神经肽如何协调负责社交信息处理和附属互动中的奖励的神经资源的方式。最后，这项研究可能有助于指导人类健康的应用，因为鼻内催产素目前正在进行临床试验，作为一种改善几种精神健康障碍的社交功能障碍的治疗方法，尽管我们对催产素在大脑中如何促进社会认知的了解尚未完全阐明。

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.