A New Animal Model of Social Reward

社会奖励的新动物模型

• 批准号: 9252522
• 负责人: DONNA L MANEY
• 金额: $ 23.4万
• 依托单位: EMORY UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-04-01 至 2019-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9252522
• 关键词: Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Animal Model; Area; Autistic Disorder; Automobile Driving; Behavior; Behavioral; Behavioral Assay; Biological Assay; Birds; Breeding; Caregivers; Child; Communication; Complex; Computer Analysis; Computing Methodologies; Data; Development; Educational process of instructing; Ensure; Exposure to; Fathers; Finches; Funding; Generations; Genes; Goals; Hearing; Human; Learning; Mammals; Maps; Measures; Mental disorders; Methods; Modeling; Motivation; Neurobiology; Neuropeptides; Operant Conditioning; Oxytocin; Oxytocin Receptor; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Pathway interactions; Pharmacology; Phenotype; Process; Production; Public Health; Receptor Signaling; Recruitment Activity; Research; Rewards; Role; Sampling; Signal Transduction; Social Development; Social Interaction; Songbirds; Stress; System; Testing; Time; Tweens; United States National Institutes of Health; Universities; Vertebrates; Work; autism spectrum disorder; behavioral pharmacology; cognitive development; collaborative environment; critical period; design; early experience; experience; incentive salience; information processing; innovation; joint attention; knock-down; male; model development; motor control; neural circuit; neurobiological mechanism; neuromechanism; neuroregulation; novel; offspring; preference; prototype; psychopathic personality; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; response; sex; skill acquisition; social; social anxiety; social learning; social neuroscience; success; tool; tutoring; vocal learning; vocalization; ward; zebra finch

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Early disruption of social reward can have devastating effects on the development of skills such as initiation of joint attention and vocal communication. Because most existing animal models of social reward focus on adults, a new model is needed for understanding early critical periods of social development in juveniles. The objective of the proposed work is to fill that gap by establishing an animal model of early social reward in juveniles interacting with caregivers. To achieve this goal, the research team will develop an assay to quantify and interrelate social motivation, social preferences, and vocal development in young zebra finches. The rationale for this approach is as follows: First, even before they begin to sing, young zebra finches are highly motivated to hear adult song and will key-press for access to it. Thus, social motivation can be easily quantified. Second, song learning in juveniles is contingent upon social bids (e.g., key presses to hear song) and can also be quantified using established methods, allowing the team to test for relationships between social motivation and vocal learning. Third, young finches prefer to learn song from caregivers rather than unfamiliar adults, providing the opportunity to understand how early social experience dictates social preferences and how those preferences drive vocal learning. In Aim 1, the team will develop an assay to obtain densely sampled, longitudinal data on these processes over the entire trajectory of sensorimotor vocal development. A key innovation of this aim will be to use novel computational methods, originally developed to understand the contributions of social orienting to vocal development in human children, to show the relationships among social motivation, social preferences, and vocal development in this new animal model. Aim 1 will produce a tool to assess the behavioral effects of pharmacological manipulations and gene knockdown within social reward pathways, allowing precise characterization of the relevant neural circuits. To begin capitalizing on the new assay, in Aim 2 the team will test the effects of oxytocin receptor (OTR) blockade on the development of social preferences and vocal learning. The central hypothesis underlying these aims is that OTR signaling early during development, contingent with social interactions with a caregiver, directs juveniles to attend preferentially to that caregiver. As a result, juveniles will more accurately copy that caregiver's vocalizations. A second key innovation is that the project will expand our understanding of oxytocin to include critical periods of social development as well as learning-both of which are potentially rich but grossly underdeveloped areas of research. The new assay will make it possible to model juvenile-initiated social bids in the context of parent-offspring interactions, as well as the relationship between social reward and the development of vocal communication. Because this species has a short generation time and can be maintained in relatively large numbers, the assay will provide new, important opportunities for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying early social reward and the developmental sequelae of its disruption.

 描述（由申请人提供）：社会奖励的早期破坏可能会对技能的发展产生破坏性影响，例如共同关注和声音交流的启动。由于大多数现有的社会奖励动物模型都集中在成年人身上，因此需要一种新的模型来理解青少年社会发展的早期关键时期。拟议工作的目标是通过建立青少年与照顾者互动的早期社会奖励动物模型来填补这一空白。为了实现这一目标，研究小组将开发一种方法来量化幼年斑胸草雀的社会动机、社会偏好和声音发育并将其相互关联。这种方法的基本原理如下：首先，即使在开始唱歌之前，年轻的斑胸草雀就非常愿意听到成年的歌曲，并且会通过按键来获取它。因此，社会动机可以很容易地量化。其次，青少年的歌曲学习取决于社交需求（例如，按下按键来听歌曲），并且也可以使用既定方法进行量化，从而使团队能够测试社交动机和声音学习之间的关系。第三，幼雀更喜欢从照顾者而不是不熟悉的成年人那里学习歌曲，这提供了了解早期社会经验如何决定社会偏好以及这些偏好如何驱动声音学习的机会。在目标 1 中，该团队将开发一种分析方法，以获得感觉运动声音发育整个轨迹上这些过程的密集采样的纵向数据。这一目标的一个关键创新是使用新颖的计算方法，该方法最初是为了了解社会定向对人类儿童声音发展的贡献而开发的，以显示这种新动物模型中的社会动机、社会偏好和声音发展之间的关系。目标 1 将开发一种工具来评估社会奖励途径中药理学操作和基因敲除的行为影响，从而精确表征相关神经回路。为了开始利用新的检测方法，在目标 2 中，该团队将测试催产素受体 (OTR) 阻断对社交偏好和声音学习发展的影响。这些目标的核心假设是，在发育早期，OTR 信号随着与照顾者的社交互动而发出，指导青少年优先照顾该照顾者。结果，青少年会更准确地模仿看护者的声音。第二个关键创新是，该项目将扩大我们对催产素的理解，将社会发展和学习的关键时期包括在内——这两个领域都是潜在丰富但严重欠发达的研究领域。新的分析方法将能够在亲子互动的背景下模拟青少年发起的社会投标，以及社会奖励和声音交流发展之间的关系。由于该物种的世代时间较短，并且可以维持相对较大的数量，因此该测定将为理解早期社会奖励及其破坏的发育后遗症的神经机制提供新的重要机会。