The Anterior Cingulate Cortex's Role in Normal Socioemotional Behavior

描述（由申请人提供）：阐明社会情绪大脑的组成部分并理解它们对物种典型行为产生的贡献，对于理解和开发有效治疗一系列心理健康和发育障碍至关重要。本研究旨在研究大脑前扣带皮层（ACC）在正常社会和情感行为中的作用（具体目标1）。在人类和非人类动物中，前扣带皮层与一系列广泛的社会和情感处理有关。对老鼠和猴子的损伤研究通常使用ACC的破坏性损伤，然后在社会和情感处理的受限非自然任务中对动物进行测试。这些方法存在许多问题，这些问题在拟议的项目中通过使用保留纤维的伊博tenic酸损伤和在半自然的社会和情感任务环境中测试动物来具体解决。一组成年恒河猴将接受双侧，前扣带皮层的伊博tenic酸损伤或假手术。动物将完成一系列半自然的社会和情感处理任务，在此过程中，它们自发产生的行为的频率和持续时间将被一个强大的行为谱捕捉到。该研究的第二个目标是将ACC损伤导致的社会和情感过程缺陷与ACC相关功能缺陷联系起来：处理竞争或冲突刺激（特定目标2）和产生生理反应（特定目标3）。人们普遍认为，前扣带皮层处理竞争性刺激输入，以执行连贯的行为反应；这一功能可能对正常的社会行为至关重要（例如，在一个复杂的社会群体中处理亲和和攻击信号）。ACC也被认为参与产生和调节外周生理反应，如心率和呼吸的变化；这一功能可能对正常的情绪行为至关重要（例如，经历生理上引起的情绪状态，如恐惧或焦虑）。在具体目标1之后，实验动物将完成两个任务来解决具体目标2和3。首先，动物将完成一项认知任务，在此过程中，必须解决竞争性的感官输入，以执行正确的行为反应。第二，动物们将完成一项任务，在观看社会情感挑衅视频的同时，测量他们的外围生理机能。将比较受损动物和对照组动物在这些任务中的表现，并将其用作分析社会和情感行为的变量（来自与具体目标1相关的任务）。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Elucidating the components of the socioemotional brain and understanding their contribution to the generation of species typical behavior is germane to understanding and developing effective treatments for a host of mental health and developmental disorders. The proposed work investigates the role of one brain structure, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), in normal social and emotional behavior (Specific Aim 1). The ACC has been implicated in a wide array of social and emotional processing in humans and nonhuman animals. Lesion studies in rats and monkeys typically use destructive lesions of the ACC and then test animals in constrained non-naturalistic tasks of social and emotional processing. There are a number of issues with these approaches that are specifically addressed in the proposed projects by using fiber-sparing ibotenic acid lesions and testing animals in semi-naturalistic social and emotional task environments. A cohort of adult rhesus macaques will receive either bilateral, ibotenic acid lesions of the anterior cingulate cortex or sham operations. Animals will complete a battery of semi-naturalistic social and emotional processing tasks during which the frequency and duration of their spontaneously generated behaviors will be captured using a robust behavioral ethogram. A secondary goal of the proposed work is to relate deficiencies in social and emotional process resulting from ACC damage to deficiencies in other ACC-related functions: processing competing or conflicting stimuli (Specific Aim 2) and generating physiological responses (Specific Aim 3). The ACC is widely thought to process competing stimulus inputs in order to execute coherent behavioral responses; this function is likely critical for normal social behavior (e.g., processing affiliative and aggressive signals within a complex social group). The ACC is also thought to be involved in generating and regulating peripheral physiological responses such as changes in heart rate and respiration; this function is likely critical for normal emotional behavior (e.g., experiencing emotional states that are physiologically arousing such as fear or anxiety). Following Specific Aim 1, experimental animals will complete two tasks to address Specific Aims 2 and 3. First, animals will complete a cognitive task during which competing sensory inputs must be resolved to execute the correct behavioral response. Second, animals will complete a task in which they watch socioemotionally provocative videos while their peripheral physiology is measured. Lesioned and control animals' performance on these tasks will be compared and also used as a variable in analyses of social and emotional behavior (from tasks related to Specific Aim 1).