DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Probing the Social Interactome: How Social Network Position Affects Physiology and Behavior

包括人类在内的社会性动物经常相互作用，并以多种方式相互影响。例如，长期研究发现，肥胖、戒烟和抑郁等人类健康指标可以部分通过社会关系预测。为了了解这些同伴效应是如何通过社交网络传播的，研究人员将使用一种高度社会化的鱼作为模型系统，这种鱼受到社会环境和社会伙伴行为的强烈影响。该研究项目将密切监测社会群体，并操纵每个群体中的一个人，以确定一个人的行为变化如何影响其他群体成员的行为，激素和神经分子反应。这些结果将提供一个更好的理解，这些社会网络的影响，可以利用，以改善社会群体的健康的机制基础。这项工作还将通过教室参观为中学生，在实验室实习的高中毕业生以及希望参与分子和行为研究的本科生提供出色的机会。这些学生将主要从鼓励代表性不足的群体参与科学的项目中招募。最后，这个项目的结果将通过媒体采访和公开演讲以及正在进行的儿童暑期科学计划进行交流。非洲慈鲷鱼，Astatotilapia burtoni，提供了一个独特的易于处理的系统，用于调查个人对彼此的生理，神经基因组状态和行为的影响，在自然主义的社会社区。研究人员开发了一个描述性的统计框架，用于研究该系统中的社区动态。每组中一只雄性动物的攻击性将使用雌激素受体激动剂进行实验性增加，先前已显示雌激素受体激动剂可导致攻击性增加约两倍。将观察这些被操纵的社区，并将其与对照处理进行比较，以确定一个男性的行为变化如何在整个社交网络中级联影响其他群体成员的行为。将收集血液和大脑样本，以确定这些社会网络扰动如何影响性类固醇激素水平和社会群体成员大脑关键区域对这些激素的敏感性。这些实验将为社会网络效应背后的生理、神经内分泌和行为机制提供因果关系的见解。

Social animals, including humans, interact frequently and can affect each other in numerous ways. For example, long-term studies have found that measures of human health such as obesity, smoking cessation, and depression can in part be predicted by social relationships. In order to understand how these peer effects spread through a social network, the researchers will use a highly social fish that is strongly affected by social environment and the behavior of social partners as model system. This research project will closely monitor social groups and manipulate one individual within each group to determine how changes in the behavior of one individual affect the behavior, hormones, and neuromolecular responses of the other group members. The results will provide a better understanding of the mechanistic basis of these social network effects that can be harnessed to improve the health of social groups. This work will also provide outstanding opportunities for middle school students through class room visits, high school seniors who are interns in the laboratory, and undergraduate students who desire to become involved in the molecular and behavioral research. These students will be primarily recruited from programs that encourage the participation of underrepresented groups in the sciences. Finally, results of this project will be communicated through media interviews and public presentations and in an on-going children's summer science program. The African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, offers a uniquely tractable system for investigating the effects that individuals have on each other's physiology, neurogenomic state and behavior within naturalistic social communities. The researchers have developed a descriptive statistical framework for studying community dynamics in this system. The aggression of one male in each group will be experimentally increased using an estrogen receptor agonist which has been previously shown to cause an approximately two-fold increase in aggression. These manipulated communities will be observed and compared to control treatments to determine how the change in behavior of one male cascades throughout the social network to affect the behavior of the other group members. Blood and brain samples will be collected to determine how these social network perturbations affect sex steroid hormone levels and sensitivity to those hormones in key areas of the brain of members of the social group. These experiments will give causal insights into the physiological, neuroendocrine and behavioral mechanisms underlying social network effects.