A New Animal Model of Social Reward

 描述（由申请人提供）：社会奖励的早期中断可能会对技能的发展产生破坏性影响，例如启动联合注意力和语音交流。由于大多数现有的动物模型的社会奖励集中在成年人，一个新的模型是需要了解早期的关键时期的社会发展的青少年。拟议工作的目标是填补这一空白，建立一个动物模型的早期社会奖励青少年与照顾者互动。为了实现这一目标，研究小组将开发一种测定方法来量化年轻斑胸草雀的社会动机，社会偏好和声音发展。这种方法的基本原理如下：首先，即使在它们开始唱歌之前，年轻的斑胸草雀就有很高的动机去听成年人的歌，并且会按下键来获得它。其次，青少年的歌曲学习取决于社会出价（例如，按键听歌曲），也可以使用已建立的方法进行量化，使团队能够测试社会动机和声乐学习之间的关系。第三，年轻的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乐学习的机会。在目标1中，该团队将开发一种测定方法，以获得在感觉运动发声发育的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将是使用新的计算方法，最初是为了了解社会定向对人类儿童声乐发展的贡献，以显示这种新动物模型中社会动机，社会偏好和声乐发展之间的关系。目标1将产生一种工具来评估药物操纵和基因敲低在社会奖励途径中的行为效应，从而精确表征相关的神经回路。为了开始利用新的分析方法，在目标2中，研究小组将测试催产素受体（OTR）阻断对社会偏好和声音学习发展的影响。这些目标的核心假设是，OTR信号在发展的早期，与社会互动的照顾者，指挥青少年参加优先照顾者。因此，青少年将更准确地复制照顾者的声音。第二个关键的创新是，该项目将扩大我们对催产素的理解，包括社会发展的关键时期以及学习这两个都是潜在的丰富但严重欠发达的研究领域。这项新的分析将使人们有可能在亲子互动的背景下模拟青少年发起的社会出价，以及社会奖励和语音交流发展之间的关系。由于该物种具有较短的世代时间，可以保持相对较大的数量，该试验将提供新的，重要的机会，了解神经机制的基础早期社会奖励和发展的后遗症，其中断。

 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.