Somatosensory cortex in affective social relationships

描述（由申请人提供）：灵长类动物之间的社会关系包括关系中个体成员之间的广泛身体接触。南美洲的提提猴是一个极端的例子，它们倾向于与已经建立了牢固关系的个体进行接触。这些一夫一妻制的灵长类动物一天中有90%的时间与家庭中的其他成员进行身体接触。大部分家庭成员之间的接触是被动的-动物并排坐在他们的侧面与另一只猴子密切接触。这种社会接触的一个独特方面是尾巴缠绕。当动物处于被动接触时，它们会横向摆动尾巴，直到接触到另一只动物的尾巴，然后尾巴紧紧地缠绕在一起。当多只动物坐在一起时，它们会把所有的尾巴都包在一个尾巴里。提提猴之间的主动接触包括梳理毛发，抓住一只手臂将相邻的动物拉近，用鼻子蹭另一个群体成员的胸部或嘴巴，雄性在交配时双手紧握雌性的臀部。 这项拟议中的研究将检查几个躯体感觉皮层区域的作用，我们认为这些区域与情感社会关系的表达和维持有关。我们将使用多单位记录技术和神经解剖追踪技术来研究前顶叶皮层和后顶叶皮层的信息处理和躯体感觉区的功能组织。我们预计，与其他灵长类动物相比，参与社会接触的身体部位的表征将被放大。我们将使用抽吸技术选择性地损伤来自成熟社会群体的动物的不同皮层区域。然后，我们将监测与特定场或身体部位表征丢失相关的社会行为和社会动机的变化。这些研究的独特之处在于，它们利用了直接由躯体感觉系统介导的显性行为，来研究参与离散社会互动的皮质机制的作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social relationships among primates include extensive physical contact between individual members of the relationship. The propensity to seek contact with individuals with which a strong relationship has been established is exemplified in the extreme by the South American titi monkey. These monogamous primates spend up to 90% of their day in physical contact with other members of their family group. Much of the contact between family members is passive -animals sit side-by-side with their lateral surface in close contact with another monkey. A unique aspect of this social contact is tail-twining. As animals sit in passive contact, they swing their tails laterally until it contacts the other animal's tail and then the tails tightly wrap around one another. When multiple animals are sitting together they wrap all of their tails in a single tail- twine. Active contact between titi monkeys includes grooming, grasping an arm to pull adjacent animals closer, nuzzling the chest or mouth of another group member, and, for males, bimanual clasping of the female's haunches during copulation. The proposed research will examine the role of several somatosensory cortical areas we believe are involved in the expression and maintenance of affective social relationships. We will examine information processing and the functional organization of somatosensory areas in anterior and posterior parietal cortex using multiunit recording techniques and neuroanatomical tracing techniques. We expect that representation of body parts, involved in social contact, will be magnified compared to other primates. We will selectively lesion, using aspiration techniques, different cortical fields in animals from well-established social groups. We will then monitor changes in social behavior and social motivation associated with the loss of a specific field or body part representation therein. These studies are unique in that they take advantage of an overt behavior, directly mediated by the somatosensory system, to examine the role of cortical mechanisms involved in discrete social interactions.