Social Information Processing in the Vomeronasal System during Active Behavior

项目总结/摘要 动物联合收割机结合感官信息和先前的经验来选择和适应行为。大脑如何 支持这种能力的证据是未知的，并且通过对小鼠的研究有利地解决了这个问题。 社会行为在小鼠中，社会行为与明确的化学信号的检测密切相关 (e.g.,信息素），在个体之间是刻板的，并且受到动物历史的强烈调节。 这些特征提供了一个很好的框架来定义与行为相关的大脑区域，并研究 感觉引导的灵活行为的潜在神经机制事实上，以前的研究表明， 辅助嗅球（AOB）在调节社会行为，但技术限制排除了能力 记录自由移动的同种伙伴之间的自然互动过程中的活动。所以我们 了解社会行为如何塑造正在进行的神经活动，以及这种活动如何反过来引导社会行为。 活动期间的行为仍然有限。该提案包含了几项创新的实验 战略和技术进步，以加深我们对神经动力学和网络的理解 支持社会行为的架构。具体来说，我将首先使用头戴式微型显微镜 （"微型镜"），以确定社会信息是如何在自由移动的小鼠的AOB内表示， 当动物积极与一系列同种伴侣和独特的伴侣互动时，会产生长期的相互作用 化学信号接下来，我建议建立AOB活动和男性间的攻击之间的关系。第一、 通过有针对性的离体记录和双向化学遗传操作，我将建立关系， AOB神经元和攻击水平之间的关系接下来，我将确定AOB传感器 反应受到交配的影响;一个突出的生活事件，促进AOB可塑性，并增加侵略性， 雄性老鼠总之，我将建立AOB内的神经活动如何适应以支持灵活的行为。 最后，我建议定义社会信息是如何分布到下游，行为相关的边缘区 目标的我将进行多部位逆行标记和特定通路操作，以确定AOB如何 支配下游目标和这些途径的行为相关性。总之，这些实验 将提供大脑如何代表，修改和分配社会信息的基本信息， 支持灵活的行为。此外，这些结果将进一步确立AOB和相关结构作为一种 强大的框架来探索复杂行为的神经基础。

Project Summary/Abstract Animals combine sensory information and prior experiences to select and adapt behavior. How the brain supports this ability is unknown, and this question is advantageously addressed through investigations of mouse social behavior. In mice, social behaviors are strongly coupled to the detection of well-defined chemosignals (e.g., pheromones), are stereotypical across individuals, and are robustly modulated by an animal’s history. These features provide an excellent framework to define behaviorally-relevant brain areas and investigate the underlying neural mechanisms of sensory-guided, flexible behavior. Indeed, previous studies implicate the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB) in regulating social behaviors, but technical limitations have precluded the ability to record activity during naturalistic interactions among freely-moving conspecific partners. Thus, our understanding of how social behavior shapes ongoing neural activity and how this activity, in turn, guides social behavior during active behavior remains limited. This proposal incorporates several innovative experimental strategies and technological advances to deepen our understanding of the neural dynamics and network architectures that support social behavior. Specifically, I will first use head-mounted miniature microscopes (“miniscopes”) to determine how social information is represented within the AOB of freely-moving mice during prolonged interactions as animals actively engage with a range of conspecific partners and with unique chemosignals. Next, I propose to establish the relationship between AOB activity and intermale aggression. First, through targeted ex vivo recordings and bidirectional chemogenetic manipulations, I will establish the relationship between functionally defined AOB neurons and aggression levels. Next, I will determine how AOB sensory responses are affected by mating; a salient life event that promotes AOB plasticity and increases aggression in male mice. Together, I will establish how neural activity within the AOB adapts in support of flexible behavior. Finally, I propose to define how social information is distributed to downstream, behaviorally-relevant limbic area targets. I will perform multi-site retrograde labeling and pathway-specific manipulations to define how the AOB innervates downstream targets and the behavioral relevance of these pathways. Together, these experiments will provide fundamental information of how the brain represents, modifies, and distributes social information in support of flexible behavior. Moreover, these results will further establish the AOB and related structures as a powerful framework to explore the neural underpinnings of complex behavior.