Ontogeny and neural basis of social visual engagement in monkeys

自闭症是一种障碍，其定义是在障碍的早期阶段出现的与社会世界接触的改变。因此，增加对这些早期社交技能出现和成熟的典型发展的关键时期以及这些技能背后的潜在神经生物学系统的了解，将为进一步了解自闭症早期诊断标记物的神经生物学来源提供前所未有的机会。尽管在过去几年里，对人类早期社交能力前体的研究已经显著增加，但支持这些早期发展的社交技能的神经基础的关键信息仍然缺乏。主要原因之一是在婴儿期对人类大脑进行神经成像的局限性，并使用纵向研究来研究大脑与行为之间的关系。因此，这一领域的知识必须来自对人类种群和动物模型的翻译研究。猕猴在这一领域提供了一个极好的机会，因为(1)它们在丰富和复杂的社会结构中发展和导航，(2)发展正常社会关系所需的基本社交技能的逐步发展，以及(3)在大脑和认知功能发育方面与人类相似。因此，目标1将纵向跟踪社会视觉参与过程的发展，包括注意、检测和整合从出生到6个月正常发育的恒河猴的社会信号，使用与典型和非典型人类种群(项目I)类似的神经心理学“标记”任务，以促进跨物种比较。这将允许确定这些过程出现和完善的重要关键时期。目标2将使用非侵入性神经成像程序，在相同的动物身上研究参与这些基本社会过程的大脑网络的成熟变化。这些对正常发育的恒河猴的研究将提供无与伦比的信息和一个关键的非人类灵长类动物模型，可以用于针对基因-行为关系的进一步研究和治疗干预。

Autism is a disorder defined by altered engagement with the social world that emerges at early stages ofthe disorder. Thus, increase knowledge on the critical periods of typical development during which these early social skills emerge and mature and on the underlying neurobiological systems that underlie these skills will give unprecedented opportunity to further understand the neurobiological source of the early diagnosis markers of autism. Although research examining the precursors of human social abilities during early infancy has significantly increased in the last few years, critical information on the neural substrates that support these early developing social skills is still lacking. One ofthe main reasons being the limitations in neuroimaging the human brain in infancy, and to study brain-behavior relationship across development using longitudinal studies. Thus, knowledge in this domain must emerge from translational research examining both human populations and animal models. Rhesus monkeys provide a remarkable opportunity in this domain given (1) the rich and complex social structure in which they develop and navigate, (2) the progressive development of the basic social skills required to develop normal social relationships, and (3) the similarity with humans in brain and cognitive functions development. Thus, Aim 1 will follow longitudinally the development of social visual engagement processes, including attention to, detection and integration of social signals in normally developing rhesus monkeys from birth to 6 months, using neuropsychological "marker" tasks similar to those employed in the typical and atypical human population (Project I) to facilitate cross-species comparisons. This will allow defining significant critical periods during which these processes emerge and refine. Aim 2 will investigate in the same animals the maturational changes in brain networks mediating these basic social processes using noninvasive neuroimaging procedures. These studies on the normally developing rhesus monkeys will provide unparalleled information and a critical non-human primate model that could be used for further investigations targeting gene-behavior relationships and therapeutic interventions.