Social Information Processing in the Vomeronasal System during Active Behavior

主动行为期间犁鼻系统的社会信息处理

• 批准号: 10751849
• 负责人: Kevin James Monk
• 金额: $ 7.18万
• 依托单位: BOSTON UNIVERSITY (CHARLES RIVER CAMPUS)
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-01 至 2026-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10751849
• 关键词: Accessory Olfactory Bulbs; Address; Affect; Afferent Neurons; Age; Aggressive behavior; Amygdaloid structure; Anatomy; Animals; Area; Behavior; Behavioral; Brain; Complex; Comprehension; Coupled; Detection; Electrophysiology (science); Environment; Event; Female; Head; Human; Image; Individual; Investigation; Label; Life; Limbic System; Medial; Memory; Microscope; Mus; Nervous System; Neurons; Output; Partner in relationship; Pathway interactions; Pattern; Peripheral; Pheromone; Physiological; Population; Process; Recording of previous events; Sampling; Sensory; Sexual Partners; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Site; Social Behavior; Social Controls; Social Interaction; Structure; Structure of terminal stria nuclei of preoptic region; Support System; System; Technology; Training; Viral; Vomeronasal Systems; awake; behavior change; experience; experimental study; feature detection; flexibility; genetic manipulation; information processing; innovation; male; mitral cell; nerve supply; network architecture; neural; neuromechanism; olfactory bulb glomeruli; response; sensory input; sensory mechanism; sex; social; social learning; stimulus processing; transmission process

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.

项目摘要/摘要 动物结合感官信息和先前的经验来选择和适应行为。大脑是如何 支持这种能力是未知的，这个问题可以通过对鼠标的调查来解决 社交行为。在小鼠中，社会行为与明确定义的化学信号的检测密切相关 (例如，信息素)，在个体中是刻板印象的，并受到动物历史的有力调节。 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 感官引导、灵活行为的潜在神经机制。事实上，之前的研究表明， 辅助嗅球(AOB)在调节社会行为方面的作用，但技术上的限制阻碍了这种能力 记录在自由移动的同种伙伴之间的自然主义互动期间的活动。因此，我们的 理解社会行为如何塑造正在进行的神经活动，以及这一活动如何反过来引导社会 在主动行为期间的行为仍然受到限制。这项提议结合了几个创新的实验 加深我们对神经动力学和网络的理解的策略和技术进步 支持社交行为的架构。具体地说，我将首先使用头戴式微型显微镜 (“微型望远镜”)，以确定社会信息是如何在自由移动的老鼠的AOB内表示的 长时间的互动，因为动物积极地与一系列同种伴侣和独特的 化学信号。接下来，我建议建立AOB活动与男性间攻击之间的关系。第一, 通过有针对性的体外记录和双向化学发生操作，我将建立这种关系 在功能定义的AOB神经元和攻击水平之间。接下来，我将确定AOB的感官 反应受交配的影响；一个显著的生活事件，促进AOB可塑性和增加攻击性 雄鼠。总之，我将确定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如何分配到下游与行为相关的边缘区域 目标。我将进行多部位逆行标记和特定路径的操作，以确定AOB如何 神经下游靶标和这些通路的行为相关性。总而言之，这些实验 将提供有关大脑如何表示、修改和分发社交信息的基本信息 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 探索复杂行为的神经基础的强大框架。