Doctoral Dissertation Research: Variation in neuroanatomy and gene expression of the primate brain

人类男性和女性在某些神经系统疾病的患病率方面表现出差异，这可能受到神经解剖学和大脑基因表达差异的影响。这个博士论文项目使用非人类灵长类动物模型来研究大脑解剖和基因表达的男性和女性变化，并考虑可能导致这种变化的选择压力。这项基础研究有可能为人类神经行为障碍的治疗提供信息，特别是考虑到非人类灵长类动物模型可能比小鼠模型更适合理解社会行为。对该项目的资助将支持一名少数民族女研究生的研究，她也将担任教育工作者和导师。她将通过她在多个课后和暑期课程的参与进行科学推广，所有这些都提供了指导和/或研究经验，以代表性不足和服务不足的学生感兴趣的科学。性选择是一个进化过程，在这个过程中，某些性状受到选择压力，这些压力与获得配偶或选择首选配偶的竞争有关。这些机制在不同物种之间存在差异，并导致非神经学特征（例如体型，头发颜色）的性别差异。有限的证据表明，性选择也可能影响大脑的进化，这些选择压力可能在人类进化过程中对大脑特别强大。研究人员将收集雌性和雄性灵长类动物大脑中的新神经生物学数据，以利用系统发育比较方法和差异表达分析来表征大脑区域体积，脑沟形态和基因表达的物种特异性性别差异。然后，他们将使用两个大型数据集，包括黑猩猩脑沟形态学和恒河猴脑基因表达，测试大脑性别差异的物种内变异的相关性，这两个数据集也包含匹配的行为数据。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Human males and females exhibit differences in the prevalence of certain neurological disorders, which may be influenced by differences in neuroanatomy and brain gene expression. This doctoral dissertation project uses a non-human primate model to investigate male and female variation in brain anatomy and gene expression and to consider selective pressures that may have led to this variation. This fundamental research has the potential to inform developing treatments for neurobehavioral disorders in humans, particularly given that the non-human primate model is likely to be more relevant than murine models for understanding social behavior. Funding for this project will support the research of a minority female graduate student who will also serve as an educator and mentor. She will conduct science outreach through her participation in multiple after-school and summer programs, all of which offer mentorship and/or research experience to underrepresented and underserved students interested in science. Sexual selection is an evolutionary process whereby certain traits are under selective pressure related to competition over access to mates or selection of preferred mates. These mechanisms differ across species, and have resulted in sex differences in non-neurological traits (e.g. body size, hair color). Limited evidence suggests that sexual selection may also influence brain evolution and that these selective pressures may have been particularly strong on the brain during human evolution. The researchers will collect new neurobiological data in female and male primate brains to characterize species-specific sex differences in brain region volumes, sulcal morphology, and gene expression using phylogenetic comparative methods and differential expression analyses. They will then test for correlates of within-species variation in brain sex differences using two large datasets, including chimpanzee sulcal morphology and rhesus macaque brain gene expression, which also contain matching behavioral data.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.