MATERNALLY DIRECTED ORIENTING BEHAVIORS OF NEWBORN RATS

描述（改编自申请人摘要）：在本指导临床试验中 科学家发展奖，一个研究和职业发展计划， 计划研究环境和神经控制的发展 新生儿的母亲导向定向和接近寻求行为 大鼠 尽管它们对情感和社会发展很重要， 是已知的形式，个体发育，和生物学的第一行为， 婴儿寻求与母亲的亲近和接触。 的 研究人员和他同事描述了一个有组织的剧目， 新生儿的母亲导向定向和接近寻求行为 实验室老鼠：在母亲的身体下移动，楔入和蠕动， 在她的腹部下翻转，在翻转时进行腹曲， 可听见的犬吠声（Polan，Soo-Hoo，霍费尔，1997）。 这些行为是 出生后立即表达，但他们的控制转移，第一个 护理经验，从生理调节的行动模式， 对母亲的触觉、热和嗅觉特征的分级反应， 和母性剥夺。 这些行为似乎类似于 人类婴儿对母亲的特殊依恋的出现。 试验 一种候选的神经调质多巴胺，表明它介导了 母亲特征和剥夺对行为的调节。 本研究计划探讨护理的第一次经验的角色 以及与母体的行为互动，以及出生本身在组织 这些行为的发展，并测试多巴胺的作用， 行为的动机属性的中介。 的核心 教育计划是由四个杰出的发展辅导 心理生物学家，迈伦霍费尔博士，杰勒德史密斯，戈登巴尔和威廉 Smotherman，候选人将从他那里学习具体的新方法， 行为结构和机制的分析以及 它们的神经基质 该计划既是关键的下一步， 候选人向独立调查员过渡， 我们对哺乳动物子女行为的生物行为基础的理解。

DESCRIPTION (adapted from applicant's abstract): In this Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award, a program of research and career development is proposed to investigate the development of environmental and neural controls of maternally-directed orienting and proximity-seeking behavior of newborn rats. Despite their importance for emotional and social development, little is known about the forms, ontogeny, and biology of the first behaviors by which infants seek closeness and contact with their mothers. The investigator and his colleagues have described an organized repertoire of maternally-directed orienting and proximity-seeking behaviors in the newborn laboratory rat: traveling, wedging, and wriggling under the mother's body, turning upside down under her ventrum, ventroflexing while upside down, and audible barking (Polan, Soo-Hoo, Hofer, 1997). These behaviors are expressed immediately after birth, but their controls shift, with the first experiences of nursing, from physiologically-regulated action patterns to graded responses to tactile, thermal, and olfactory features of the mother, and to maternal deprivation. These behaviors appear to be analogous to the emergence of the human infant's specific attachment to its mother. Tests of one candidate neuromodulator, dopamine, suggest that it mediates the behaviors' regulation by maternal features and deprivation. The research plan investigates the roles of the first experiences of nursing and behavioral interaction with the dam, and of birth itself in organizing the development of these behaviors, and, tests the role of dopamine as a mediator of the behaviors' motivational properties. The centerpiece of the education program is mentoring by four outstanding developmental psychobiologists, Drs. Myron Hofer, Gerard Smith, Gordon Barr, and William Smotherman from whom the candidate will learn specific new methods for the analysis of behavioral structure and mechanisms and the determination of their neural substrates. This program is both the critical next step in the candidate's transition to an independent investigator and a contribution to our understanding of the biobehavioral bases of mammalian filial behavior.