MATERNALLY DIRECTED ORIENTING BEHAVIORS OF NEWBORN RATS

描述(摘自申请者的摘要)：在本指导临床中 科学家发展奖，一个研究和职业发展的计划是 建议研究环境和神经控制的发展 母性定向与新生儿寻近行为的关系 老鼠。尽管它们对情感和社会发展很重要，但几乎没有 已知第一种行为的形式、个体发生学和生物学 这些婴儿寻求与母亲的亲密和接触。这个 调查员和他的同事们描述了一个有组织的曲目 新生儿母性定向与寻近行为的研究 实验鼠：在母亲的身体下行走、楔入和蠕动， 在她的腹下翻个底朝天，在倒立的时候弯下身，还有 可听见的叫声(Polan，Soo-Hoo，Hofer，1997)。这些行为是 出生后立即表达，但它们的控制力发生变化，第一个 护理体会，从生理调节的行为模式到 对母亲的触觉、温度和嗅觉特征的分级反应， 以及对母亲的剥夺。这些行为似乎类似于 出现了人类婴儿对母亲的特殊依恋。测试 一种候选的神经调节剂，多巴胺，表明它介导了 母性特征和剥夺对行为的调节。 研究计划调查护理的第一次经验的作用 以及与水坝的行为互动，以及组织中的出生本身 这些行为的发展，并测试了多巴胺作为一种 行为动机属性的中介者。该中心的核心是 教育项目由四位杰出的发展人士指导 心理生物学家，迈伦·霍弗博士、杰拉德·史密斯、戈登·巴尔和威廉 斯莫斯曼，候选人将从他那里学习针对 行为结构和机制的分析与确定 它们的神经基质。这一计划既是 候选人向独立调查员的转变和对 我们对哺乳动物孝顺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.