BRAIN EAGER: Socially Situated Neuroscience: Creating a suite of tools for studying sociality and interoception

社会对我们的行为和大脑有着强大的影响。然而，我们关于大脑中神经元功能的大部分知识都是基于与社会同伴隔离的动物或人类的神经记录。因此，存在一个知识缺口，这主要是由于缺乏在社会领域进行实验的记录和行为工具，这些工具仍然允许适当的实验控制。Andrea Chiba博士及其同事致力于通过开发以下技术来填补这一空白：1)可以以非侵入式方式提供大脑和身体信号的轻便、无线、灵活的记录传感器；2)一个具有合成的、受生物学启发的大脑的机器人，它可以作为一个与社会相关的实体；3)一组新颖的实验来探究大脑回路的功能及其在社会互动和决策过程中与其他生物信号的关系。在复杂的社会决策过程中，记录和整合来自大脑和身体的信号的能力将为研究和重建大脑信号提供一个研究平台，以了解大脑如何代表社会世界。这项新技术最终可以用于人类，为更好地理解目标导向的社会行为的神经基础提供了一种超越目前可行的方法。除了有可能推动社会神经科学这一尚未被充分研究的领域之外，这些工具的开发还将为培养下一代多样化的跨学科科学家提供一个前沿平台。研究团队致力于公共宣传和计划：1)公开演讲，包括K-12和本科生观众；2)通过适当的媒体渠道传播信息；3)发起虚拟机器人竞赛，通过突出令人兴奋的跨学科研究，将大脑和行为研究与工程方法联系起来，吸引具有不同科学职业背景的有前途的年轻学者。具体来说，将开发并结合3项主要技术来组成一套神经科学工具，包括：1)用于检测自主反应的柔性，可拉伸的无线传感器，如呼吸率和心率，这两者都是由社会接触调节的；2)自主神经信号与高密度神经生理无线记录系统的整合，因为目前还没有这样的系统。这些系统的近似结果是笨重的仪器，扰乱了普通的运动和社会行为，因此第二代这项技术将包括与可注射的细胞尺度光电设备的集成；3)合成生命形式（机器人），作为神经科学研究工具和从神经系统复杂动力学实验数据中获得的理论原理集成的测试平台。最终，机器人的神经启发架构将依次扩展到包括和综合对社会功能至关重要的神经系统的正式理论性质。这些工具可以解决的基本神经科学问题数不胜数。

The social world exerts a powerful influence on our behavior and our brains. Yet, much of our knowledge regarding the function of neurons in the brain is based on neural recordings from animals or humans who are isolated from their social counterparts. Thus, there exists a knowledge gap that is largely due to the lack of recording and behavioral tools for doing experiments in the social realm that still allow proper experimental control. Dr. Andrea Chiba and colleagues aim to fill this gap by developing the following: 1) light, wireless, flexible recording sensors that can provide brain and body signals in a non-intrusive manner; 2) a robot with a synthetic, biologically inspired brain that can act as a socially relevant entity; and 3) a set of novel experiments to interrogate the function of brain circuits and their relationship to other biological signals during social interactions and decisions. The ability to record and integrate signals from the brain and body during complex social decisions will provide a research platform for studying and reconstructing brain signals to understand how the brain represents the social world. The new technology can eventually be scaled for use with humans, providing a means to better understand the neural basis of goal-directed social actions beyond what is currently feasible.In addition to its potential for advancing the understudied field of social neuroscience, the development of the tools will provide a cutting-edge platform to train the next generation of diverse interdisciplinary scientists. The research team is committed to public outreach and plans are in place for: 1) public talks, including to K-12 and undergraduate audiences; 2) dissemination of information through appropriate media outlets; and 3) launching a virtual robot competition to engage promising young scholars of diverse backgrounds in scientific careers, by highlighting exciting interdisciplinary research that links the study of brain and behavior with engineering approaches. Specifically, 3 major technologies will be developed and conjoined to comprise a suite of neuroscientific tools that include: 1) Flexible, stretchable, wireless sensors for detecting autonomic responses such as respiration rate and heart rate, both of which are modulated by social encounters; 2) integration of the autonomic signals with high-density neurophysiological wireless recording systems, as no such system exists currently. Approximations of these systems result in heavy instrumentation that disrupts ordinary movement and social behavior, so the second generation of this technology would include integration with injectable cellular scale opto-electronic devices; and 3) A synthetic life form (robot) to be further developed as a neuroscience research tool and a test bed for integration of theoretical principles gained from experimental data of the complex dynamics of neural systems. Ultimately, the neurally inspired architecture of the robot will, in turn, be expanded to include and synthesize the formal theoretical properties of neural systems essential to social function. The basic neuroscientific questions that can be addressed with these tools are boundless.