High precision feeding system

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Being part of a social group creates needs that require specialized behavioral and neurobiological responses. The novel and recently defined field of social neuroscience aims at understanding the neurobiological bases of social behavior. My and my students' research program focuses on the neurobiology of cognitive aspects of social behavior in mammals. Among many, one social behavioral paradigm that we use consistently is the social acquisition of food preferences, whereby a naive animal, an observer, interacts with a recently fed conspecific, a demonstrator. The observer, when subsequently given a choice between two novel diets, exhibits a preference for the food that was eaten by the demonstrator. We are investigating the involvement of various neurobiological systems in this paradigm with 3 rodent species; mice, rats and gerbils. The appropriate study of this paradigm requires the use of a precise system for the measurement of the food intake by animals in a choice test situation. We are currently utilizing 10 units of a highly precise feeding system which allow us to collect high quality and reliable data. However, the limited number of units renders our research progress very slow. Additional units that would allow us to test 50 animals at a time would significantly improve the opportunities for students to access the system as well as the overall productivity of my laboratory, thus significantly advancing the pace of Canadian research in social neuroscience. Identifying the neural and hormonal processes subserving normal social behavior could aid in the development of novel treatments of abnormal social behavior, thus helping several vexing human disorders. Among many, these include autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and schizotypical disorders, social phobias and anxiety, as well as hyperaggression and violence. Furthermore, given that individual and social learning can be neurobiologically different, today's minimal knowledge of the mechanisms of social learning is a serious drawback for the evaluation of various agents (e.g. of new and old (!) drug therapies) on learning and memory. Our research will contribute to filling this gap in knowledge and help to advance research in social neuroscience in Canada.