Play and the Development of the Social Brain

在非人类动物中，最常见的游戏形式是“打闹”游戏或“游戏打斗”，这是一种非伤害性的竞争互动形式，双方相互竞争，以获得相对于另一方的某些优势，例如能够轻轻地咬他们的伴侣。存在的行为机制可以降低游戏打斗升级为严重战斗的风险；这使得游戏中出现的反复身体接触是有回报的。当动物，如老鼠，在青少年时期被剥夺参与同龄人游戏的机会时，它们会发展成为不具备社交能力的成年人。我的研究表明，如果大脑的某些区域受损，比如前额叶皮质，大鼠就会表现出社交缺陷，就像它们被剥夺了游戏一样。此外，我的实验室已经证明，前额叶皮质神经元的解剖结构在改变动物少年时期的游戏体验时会发生改变。因此，我的理论是，青少年时期玩耍打架的经历对于大脑中那些对社交能力至关重要的区域的发展是必要的。在这项拟议的研究中，我将使用实验室大鼠来研究游戏体验的哪些方面对大脑的发展至关重要，并描述更有能力的社交大脑执行更有能力的社交行为的机制。例如，通过增强将复杂动作排列在一起的能力，或通过减弱来自新的和不可预测的社交环境中产生的恐惧的影响，可以提高表现。我还将对不同种类的灵长类动物的游戏进行比较分析，以确定游戏战斗的组织是否因物种的社会行为的复杂性而有所不同。再一次，我的初步发现表明，那些在其社会中有更复杂问题要解决的物种，在青少年时期有似乎适合训练它们做出快速而多样的动作的游戏模式。这些研究将表征社交能力是如何发展的，以及青少年时期的游戏经验对这一发展的贡献。

The most common form of play in non-human animals is "rough-and-tumble" play or "play fighting", which is a non-injurious form of competitive interaction, in which partners compete for some advantage over one another, such as being able to bite their partner gently. Behavioural mechanisms exist that reduce the risk of play fighting escalating into serious fighting; this makes the repeated bodily contact present in play rewarding. When animals, such as rats, are deprived, in the juvenile period, of the opportunity to engage in peer-peer play, they develop into socially incompetent adults. My work has shown that if certain areas of the brain are damaged, such as the prefrontal cortex, rats exhibit social deficits as if they had been deprived of play. Also, my laboratory has shown that the anatomy of the neurons of the prefrontal cortex is modified when varying the experiences of play that animals have had as juveniles. Therefore, I theorize that experience with play fighting as juveniles is necessary for the development of those areas of the brain that are critical for social competency. In the proposed research, I will use laboratory rats to investigate what aspects of the play experience are critical for the development of the brain and characterize the mechanisms by which a more competent social brain executes more competent social behaviour. For example, improved performance may arise from enhanced ability to sequence together complex movements or by attenuating the effects of fear arising from novel and unpredictable social contexts. I will also conduct a comparative analysis of play in a diverse range of primates to determine whether the organization of play fighting differs among species depending on the complexity of their social behaviour. Again, my preliminary findings suggest that those species with more complex problems to solve in their societies have patterns of play as juveniles that seem appropriate for training them to make quick and varied actions. These studies will characterize how social competence develops and the contribution made to this development by the experience of play as juveniles.