Brain, Gene, and Environment Interactions in the Ontogeny of Early Helping Behavior

婴儿的帮助行为是人类发展过程中最早和最好的社会行为之一。因此，早期帮助的个体发生基础对于我们理解人类相互照顾和合作的独特能力至关重要。迄今为止，关于早期帮助行为的研究主要集中在个体发育和早期帮助的实际起源中涉及的心理过程，而人类最早的亲社会成就之前的关键决定因素（即，大脑发育、基因组成和早期环境影响）及其相互作用还没有得到很好的理解。本研究的总体目标是更好地了解早期帮助行为与（1）婴儿大脑发育之间的关系，以及（2）遗传和（3）环境因素如何影响与婴儿早期亲社会成就相关的关键大脑网络的发展。具体来说，我们提出了一项正在进行的（已经资助的）前瞻性纵向队列研究的附加研究，包括1）新生儿和1岁婴儿大脑的多模态磁共振成像（MRI），（2）婴儿DNA样本，（3）6个月大时母婴互动的行为观察。在这项拟议的附加研究中，我们将描述婴儿的帮助行为和关键发展技能的实现（婴儿对他人需求的理解，在眼动跟踪范式中评估，婴儿的精细和粗动能力，以及婴儿的社会交往技能），这些技能是15个月大时帮助行为早期发展的基础。此外，我们将评估母亲在12个月大的帮助行为的社会化。这项附加研究将使我们能够调查婴儿亲社会神经网络（12个月）内的神经连接及其在生命第一年（新生儿至12个月）内的发展轨迹与早期帮助行为的发展以及与早期帮助行为相关的关键发展技能之间的关联。此外，我们将测试目标基因（即，认知同理心的多基因评分）和环境因素（即，在6个月和12个月时与母亲的支持性社会互动），这可能与婴儿的大脑发育有关，因此，帮助行为的早期个体发育有关。这项研究将使我们对人类最早的亲社会能力在大脑、基因和环境水平上的决定因素以及这些不同水平之间的相互作用有前所未有的了解。

Infants’ helping behavior is one of the earliest and best documented (pro)social behaviors in human development. Thus, the ontogenetic foundations of early helping are essential to our understanding of human unique capacities to care for and collaborate with each other. To date, the research on early helping behavior is mostly centered around psychological processes involved in the ontogeny and actual genesis of early helping, while critical determinants which precede humans’ earliest prosocial attainments (i.e., brain development, genetic makeup, and early environmental influences) and their interaction are not well understood. The overarching goal of the present study is to gain a better understanding of the association between early helping behavior and (1) infants’ brain development, and how (2) genetic and (3) environmental factors influence the development of critical brain networks associated with infants’ earliest prosocial attainments. Specifically, we propose an add-on study to an ongoing (and already funded) prospective longitudinal cohort study that includes 1) multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain in newborn and 1-year-old infants, (2) infant DNA samples, and (3) a behavioral observation of mother-infant interaction at 6 months of age. In this proposed add-on study, we will characterize infants’ helping behavior and the attainment of critical developmental skills (infants’ understanding of others’ needs, assessed in an eye-tracking paradigm, infants’ fine and gross motor abilities, and infants’ social interaction skills) that underlie the early development of helping behavior at 15 month-of-age. In addition, we will assess maternal socialization of helping behavior at 12-month-of-age. This add-on study will allow us to investigate the association between infants’ neural connectivity within a prosocial neural network (at 12 months) and its developmental trajectory within the first year of life (newborn to 12 months) with the development of early helping behavior and critical developmental skills associated with early helping behavior. Furthermore, we will test targeted genetic (i.e., polygenic score for cognitive empathy) and environmental factors (i.e., supportive social interaction with the mother at 6 and 12 months) that may be associated with infants’ brain development and, in consequence, the early ontogeny of helping behavior. This study will give us unprecedented insights into the determinants of human earliest prosocial capacities at the level of the brain, gene, and environment, as well as the interaction between these different levels.