Developmental Consequences of Sexual Conflict on Female Behavior, Cognition and the Brain

早期生活中的社会交往对行为模式，认知能力和大脑的发展有很大的影响。对人类的研究发现，早期经历与认知行为特征之间存在相关性。本计画将以剑尾鱼为实验对象，测试这些关系。先前对鱼类的研究已经确定，一种被称为性冲突（雄性和雌性在交配率上存在分歧）的特殊压力社会互动会导致雌性大脑体积的增加。与此同时，其他研究表明，必须驾驭不同类型的社交互动（也称为社交复杂性）可能会增强认知能力。这项研究将通过控制在一个表现出社会复杂性和性冲突的鱼类系统中饲养期间的社会条件来测试这两个相互竞争的假设。剑尾鱼有三种不同类型的雄性，它们代表了对雌性不同程度的性冲突（高、低或中等性冲突）。通过在不同类型的男性存在的社会环境中饲养雌性剑尾鱼，研究人员可以量化性冲突和社会复杂性如何塑造成年人的行为（包括焦虑，攻击和社交），认知（学习能力），并确定哪些大脑区域在不同的社会经验中增长或减少。 这项研究将产生更广泛的影响，影响当地和全国学生通过调查员的努力，将她的研究纳入当地高中外展计划和新生研究倡议课程在得克萨斯大学，并通过学生发起的国家媒体产品（YouTube）对这项研究。性冲突，两性之间的最佳交配率不匹配，是普遍存在的动物。虽然这场斗争的形态后果得到了很好的研究，但对性冲突的行为和认知后果知之甚少。在这项研究中，研究人员将实验性地研究剑尾鱼（剑尾鱼）的性冲突的发展影响，剑尾鱼有三种不同的雄性表型，代表了对雌性的不同程度的性冲突：求爱雄性（低冲突），胁迫雄性（高冲突），以及既求爱又胁迫的雄性（混合冲突）。雌性剑尾鱼从出生到成年早期，将在五种社会环境中的一种中长大，这些环境在性冲突和社会复杂性方面各不相同。 在成年期，女性将参与广泛的分析，以确定社会经验如何塑造行为和认知特征。这些分析评估焦虑，社交和探索倾向以及联想学习，认知灵活性和社会认知能力。 女性大脑将被检查，以确定社会环境如何影响不同的大脑区域的发展和候选社会途径的受体分布，包括异催产素和突触可塑性标记。这项实验的结果将确定社会环境如何影响行为倾向的发展，以及直接测试增强认知和大脑发育的竞争假设（性冲突与社会复杂性）。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

Social interactions during early life can have large impacts on the development of behavioral patterns, cognitive abilities and the brain. Research in humans has found correlations between early experiences and cognitive-behavioral traits. This project will test these relationships using manipulative experiments with swordtail fish. Previous research in fish has determined that a particular kind of stressful social interaction known as sexual conflict (where males and females disagree over mating rates) can lead to an increase in female brain size. Meanwhile, other research has suggested that having to navigate different kinds of social interactions (also known as social complexity) may result in enhanced cognitive capabilities. The research will test these two competing hypotheses by controlling social conditions during rearing in a fish system that exhibits social complexity and sexual conflict. There are three different types of swordtail males, which represent different levels of sexual conflict towards females (high, low or intermediate sexual conflict). By raising female swordtails in social environments that vary in the type of males present, researchers can quantify how sexual conflict and social complexity shape adult behaviors (including anxiety, aggression and sociability), cognition (learning abilities), and determine which brain regions grow or diminish in response to different social experiences. This research will have broader impacts that affect both local and national students through the investigator's efforts to incorporate her research into local high school outreach program and the Freshman Research Initiative course at the University of Texas, and through student-initiated national media products (YouTube) on this research.Sexual conflict, the mismatch in optimal mating rates between the sexes, is ubiquitous across animals. While the morphological consequences of this struggle are well-studied, less is known about the behavioral and cognitive consequences of sexual conflict. In this study, the investigator will experimentally examine the developmental effects of sexual conflict in the swordtail fish (Xiphophorus nigrensis), which has three alternative male phenotypes that represent different levels of sexual conflict towards females: courting males (low conflict), coercive males (high conflict), and males who both court and coerce (mixed conflict). Female swordtails will be raised from birth to early adulthood in one of five social environments that vary in levels of both sexual conflict and social complexity. At adulthood, females will partake in a broad range of assays to determine how social experiences shape behavioral and cognitive traits. These assays evaluate anxiety, sociability and exploratory tendencies as well as associative learning, cognitive flexibility and social cognition capabilities. Female brains will be examined to determine how social environment influences the development of distinct brain regions and receptor distribution of candidate social pathways including isotocin and synaptic plasticity markers. The results of this experiment will identify how the social environment influences the development of behavioral tendencies, as well as directly test competing hypotheses for enhanced cognition and brain development (sexual conflict versus social complexity). It will also identify which brain regions (focusing on the social decision-making network) undergo differential development in response to specific social interactions associated with conflict and complexity.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.