High precision feeding system

作为社会群体的一部分，需要专门的行为和神经生物学反应。社会神经科学是一个新的和最近定义的领域，旨在理解社会行为的神经生物学基础。我和我的学生的研究项目集中在哺乳动物社会行为认知方面的神经生物学。在许多社会行为范式中，我们一直使用的一个是食物偏好的社会获得，一个天真的动物，一个观察者，与一个最近喂养的同种动物，一个演示者互动。当观察者随后在两种新的饮食中做出选择时，他对演示者所吃的食物表现出偏好。我们正在研究在这个范例中涉及的各种神经生物学系统与3种啮齿动物;小鼠，大鼠和沙鼠。对这种范式的适当研究需要使用精确的系统来测量动物在选择测试情况下的食物摄入量。我们目前正在使用10个高精度的进料系统，使我们能够收集高质量和可靠的数据。然而，由于单位数量有限，我们的研究进展非常缓慢。额外的单位，这将使我们能够测试50只动物的时间将显着提高学生访问系统的机会，以及我的实验室的整体生产力，从而显着推进加拿大在社会神经科学研究的步伐。确定神经和激素过程有助于正常的社会行为，可以帮助开发新的治疗异常社会行为的方法，从而帮助一些令人烦恼的人类疾病。其中包括自闭症谱系障碍、精神分裂症和非典型性障碍、社交恐惧症和焦虑症，以及过度攻击和暴力。此外，考虑到个体和社会学习可能是神经生物学上不同的，今天对社会学习机制的最低限度的了解是评估各种代理（例如新的和旧的（！）药物疗法）对学习和记忆的影响。我们的研究将有助于填补这一知识空白，并有助于推进加拿大社会神经科学的研究。

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.