PEPTIDE MODULATION OF AFFILIATIVE AND ASOCIAL BEHAVIOR

抗利尿激素-催产素家族的神经肽在广泛的脊椎动物类群的亲和和反社会行为中发挥重要作用。同样，最近在人类临床人群（人格障碍、自闭症、抑郁症）中的发现表明，社交障碍可能至少部分是由这些肽系统的功能障碍造成的。在包括人类在内的脊椎动物群体中，后叶加压素-催产素脑分布的行为功能和主要特征是保守的，这进一步强调了对人类种群的比较数据的相关性。尽管如此，抗利尿激素-催产素系统也表现出显著的可塑性。现在，各种各样的数据支持了这里提出的假设，即特定的和综合的行为模式的表达（例如，个体性别、社会策略和物种社会结构的典型或特定行为）部分是由后叶加压素-催产素系统的功能不稳定性产生的。然而，很少有实验明确地测试了性别差异对相似行为的调节，而且在大多数物种中，只有有限范围的社会行为得到了检验。拟议的实验将在雄性和雌性鸣禽的脑室内注入抗利尿激素和催产素样肽，以确定神经肽在广泛的行为中的功能，包括攻击、求爱、性行为、伴侣偏好（典型的一夫一妻制伴侣关系）和非性关系。鸣禽社会结构的多样性允许在保持潜在混淆不变的情况下检查行为的特定方面；我们之前的实验已经表明，神经肽调节雄性攻击性在殖民地和领土鸣禽物种中是不同的（即，高度群居和相对非群居）。这里提出的实验将这些物种的比较扩展到雌性和更广泛的社会行为。最后，神经解剖学技术（用于即时早期基因表达和多肽的免疫细胞化学；定量放射自显影）将用于建立神经基础，以确定亲和和非社会物种之间多肽功能的差异。

Neuropeptides of the vasopressin-oxytocin family play important roles in both affiliative and asocial behaviors across a broad range of vertebrate taxa. Similarly, recent findings in human clinical populations (personality disorder, autism, depression) indicate that impairments of sociality may be produced at least in part by dysfunctions of these peptide systems. The relevance of comparative data for human populations is further underscored by the observation that across vertebrate groups, including humans, behavioral functions and major features of vasopressin-oxytocin brain distributions are conserved. Nonetheless, vasopressin-oxytocin systems exhibit remarkably plastic features as well. A variety of data now suggest the hypothesis advanced here that the expression of specific and integrated patterns of behavior (e.g., behavior typical or specific to an individual's sex, social tactics, and species' social structure) is produced in part by the functional lability of vasopressin-oxytocin systems. However, few experiments have explicitly tested for sex differences in the modulation of similar behaviors, and in most species, only a limited range of social behaviors have been examined. Proposed experiments will employ intracerebroventricular infusions of vasopressin- and oxytocin-like peptides in both male and female songbirds to determine neuropeptide functions for a broad , range of behaviors, including aggression, courtship, sexual behavior, partner preference (typical of monogamous pair-bonds), and non-sexual affiliation. The diversity of social structures in songbirds allows specific aspects of behavior to be examined while holding potential confounds constant; our previous experiments have shown that neuropeptides modulate male aggression differently in colonial vs. territorial songbird species (i.e., highly gregarious vs. relatively asocial). Experiments proposed here extend these species comparisons to females and to a broader range of social behaviors. Finally, neuroanatomical techniques (immunocytochemistry for immediate early gene expression and peptides; quantitative autoradiography) will be used to establish neural bases for the previously-identified divergence in peptide function between affiliative and asocial species.