Play and the development of the brain's social skills

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性互动形式，双方相互竞争，以获得某些优势，比如能够轻轻地咬他们的伴侣。存在行为机制，通过在竞争中加入某种程度的合作，减少游戏打斗升级为严重战斗的风险；这种竞争与合作并存的情况使游戏中反复出现的身体接触是有回报的。当老鼠等动物在幼年期被剥夺参与同伴游戏的机会时，它们成年后的社交技能就会变得贫乏，因此它们成功交配或谈判支配关系的能力就会减弱。我的工作表明，社交饲养的大鼠的前额叶皮质受损会产生社交缺陷，这与被剥夺游戏的大鼠相似。我的实验室还表明，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，或者通过减弱来自新奇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。社交能力的提高还可能源于对社交信号的更好解释和/或传递，例如老鼠在社交互动中发出的无数50千赫的叫声，包括游戏。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。根据我的初步发现，我假设，社会制度更复杂的物种，需要与更多样化的社会关系进行谈判的物种，在青少年时期具有游戏模式，这种模式经过修改，为成年后所需的社交技能提供培训。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。游戏在发展社交技能和谈判关系方面的关键作用使这项研究的影响超出了其在基础科学中的价值，包括改善圈养的社交动物的住所，以及制定促进对儿童有益的经历的战略。

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 by incorporating some level of cooperation into the competition; this juxtaposition of competition and cooperation 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 have impoverished social skills as adults, such that their ability to mate successfully or negotiate dominance relationships is diminished. My work has shown that damage to the prefrontal cortex of socially reared rats produces social deficits similar to those present in rats that had been deprived of play. My laboratory has also 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 the enhanced ability to sequence together complex movements or by attenuating the effects of fear arising from novel and unpredictable social contexts. Improved social competence may also arise from improved interpretation and/or delivery of social signals, such as the myriad 50-kHz calls that rats emit during social interactions, including play. 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. Based on my preliminary findings, I hypothesize that species with more complex social systems, ones requiring them to negotiate more varied social relationships, have patterns of play as juveniles that are modified in ways that provide training for the social skills they will need as adults. These studies will characterize how social competence develops and the contribution made to this development by the experience of play as juveniles. The critical role of play in developing social skills and negotiating relationships leads this research to have implications beyond its value in basic science to include improvements in housing captive social animals and in developing strategies to facilitate experiences helpful to children.