CAREER: The Neurobiology of Neophobia in a Wild Songbird

由于新的城市和郊区环境正在全球范围内取代自然环境，新恐惧症或动物对新物体，食物或环境的恐惧反应是一种与野生种群密切相关的行为。在包括人类在内的许多物种中，不同的个体对新奇事物的反应非常不同。然而，人们仍然不太清楚是什么导致了个体之间的新恐惧症差异。这项拟议中的工作将有助于填补这一知识空白，方法是测试一个关键大脑区域海马体的个体差异是否有助于解释新恐惧症的个体差异。这项工作将建立在以前对一种研究得很好的野生鸣禽家雀的研究基础上，并利用该物种在新恐惧症中广泛且可重复的个体差异。通过三个相互关联的研究和教育目标，这项研究将从事不同人群的本科生在行为的神经生物学的积极研究计划，并制定一个明确的和可复制的方法，如何在大型公立大学的联合收割机研究和教学相结合。这项研究还将为神经生物学差异如何导致行为差异提供重要见解，并揭示社会经验如何改变大脑，以减少对新奇事物的恐惧行为。这反过来将有助于我们了解动物适应环境变化的能力。新恐惧症可能在确定为什么一些个体、种群和物种能够在人类改变的景观中持续存在而另一些则不能方面特别重要。拟议的研究将结合联合收割机转录组学，分子生物学，内分泌学，神经生物学，以及个人和社会行为，以显着推进我们对这种关键行为表型的机械理解。这些项目还将提供有关不同大脑区域如何介导动物感知和响应世界的方式，以及进化如何保存或修改这些区域和这些区域内分子介质的功能的基本数据。 第一个目标将使用经典的实验神经内分泌方法暂时固定尾部背内侧海马，并测试两种神经内分泌受体（多巴胺受体2和雌激素受体β）的作用，这两种受体在neophobic和非neophobic鸟类中表现出差异。第二个目标将使用PhosphoTRAP来评估在社交学习中观察到的新恐惧症的变化是否与海马神经元中改变的新奇寻求和焦虑相关基因表达相关。第三个目标将扩大这项研究的范围，通过非常成功的LSU CURE计划开发一个新的基于课程的本科生研究经验（CURE）实验室，以测试新恐惧症是否是家雀行为综合征的一部分，并检查暴露于社会学习范式的鸟类与海马体相连的大脑区域的基因表达。 该研究由行为系统集群、神经系统集群、调制计划和刺激竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。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。

Because novel urban and suburban environments are replacing natural environments on a global scale, neophobia, or an animal’s fearful response to novel objects, foods, or environments, is a behavior with critical relevance for wild populations. In many species, including humans, different individuals respond very differently to novelty. However, it is still poorly understood what causes differences in neophobia among individuals. The proposed work will help fill this knowledge gap by testing whether individual variation in one key brain region, the hippocampus, can help explain individual variation in neophobia. This work will build on previous research on a well-studied wild songbird, the house sparrow, and take advantage of wide and repeatable individual variation in neophobia in this species. Through three linked research and educational aims, this research will engage a diverse population of undergraduate students in an active research program in the neurobiology of behavior, and develop a clear and replicable approach for how to combine research and teaching at a large public university. This research will also provide critical insights into how differences in neurobiology can lead to differences in behavior, and reveal how social experiences may change the brain to decrease fearful behavior towards novelty. This, in turn, will help us understand the ability of animals to adapt to environmental change. Neophobia may be particularly important in determining why some individuals, populations, and species are able to persist in human-altered landscapes while others are not. The proposed research will combine transcriptomics, molecular biology, endocrinology, neurobiology, and individual and social behavior to significantly advance our mechanistic understanding of this critical behavioral phenotype. These projects will also provide essential data about how different brain regions mediate the ways animals perceive and respond to the world, and how evolution has conserved or modified the functions of those regions and molecular mediators within those regions. The first aim will use classic experimental neuroendocrine methods to temporarily inactivate the caudal dorsomedial hippocampus and test the role of two neuroendocrine receptors (dopamine receptor 2 and estrogen receptor beta) that show expression differences in neophobic and non-neophobic birds. The second aim will use PhosphoTRAP to assess whether an observed change in neophobia in response to social learning is associated with altered novelty-seeking and anxiety-related gene expression in hippocampal neurons. The third aim will expand the scope of this research by developing a new Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) lab through the highly successful LSU CURE program to test whether neophobia is part of a behavioral syndrome in house sparrows, and to examine gene expression in brain regions connected to the hippocampus in birds exposed to a social learning paradigm. This research is jointly funded by the Behavioral Systems Cluster, the Neural Systems Cluster; Modulation Program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.