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，催产素在哺乳动物的核心社会行为神经回路中起作用，以促进社会联系。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像催产素这样的社会神经化学物质是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功能的——这是建立社会联系的关键因素。本研究的目的是在草原田鼠的依恋行为中，在已知的由催产素调节的特定边缘系统部位使用慢性电极植入，以确定这些回路之间的正常功能神经连接。我们的中心假设是，社会互动同步了社会奖励和社会信息通路各组成部分的电生理活动，从而增强了它们的功能连通性。我们的基本原理是，一旦我们知道这些大脑区域在社交活动中如何正常地相互沟通，我们就可以使用药理学技术来测试关于催产素在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调查我们的假设。首先，我们将确定雌性草原田鼠在社会纽带形成和表达过程中社会奖励通路组成部分的功能性神经连接。其次，我们将确定在社会纽带形成和表达过程中，社会信息处理和奖励通路组成部分之间的功能性神经连接。我们的建议的意义在于它开创了一个全新的

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.