THE NEURAL BASIS OF PAIR-BONDING IN FEMALE TITI MONKEYS

项目摘要 社会行为的神经生物学至关重要，不仅是为了了解我们自己的基本情况 生物学，但也适用于社会行为受损的情况(例如，自闭症谱系障碍和 精神分裂症)。社会支持对长期健康的影响现在在很大程度上是毋庸置疑的；其危险 孤独感也越来越被人们所熟知。例如，最近的一项元分析发现，糟糕的社交 恋爱关系导致患冠心病的风险增加29%，患中风的风险增加32%。我们的 自己之前对灵长类社会纽带的神经生物学的研究，像其他许多研究一样，都集中在男性身上。 当谈到社会心理障碍时，女性代表着一个关键的和未被研究的群体 灵长类配对结合的行为和研究。女性也更有可能被诊断为情绪化 精神障碍，如严重的抑郁症，可能严重缺乏对社会风险因素的研究，如 作为社交压力。在这里，我们提出了一系列关于依恋的神经生物学基础的研究 雌性Titi猴，一种社会性一夫一妻制的新世界灵长类动物，使用药理学和功能成像 以解决有关社会性的基础的基本问题。我们最重要的假设是 从依恋父母到依恋伴侣的转变，可能依赖于神经肽受体的功能， 尤其是神经肽催产素和加压素。我们将在青少年和青少年中研究这些问题 成年雌性蒂蒂猴。我们将利用行为药理学来研究催产素和 加压素对依恋的基本特征的操纵(偏爱伴侣/父母， 分离时的痛苦，以及社会缓冲)。我们使用功能成像来检查动态变化 我们已知的蒂蒂猴体内有催产素或加压素受体的区域的葡萄糖摄取，作为对 操纵，包括附件人物的存在或不存在。最后，我们将使用分子 检查催产素和后叶加压素受体甲基化变化的技术 配对结合、分离和缓解压力。

Project Summary The neurobiology of social behavior is of crucial importance not only in order to understand our own basic biology, but also for cases in which social behavior is impaired (for example, autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia). The effects of social support on long-term health are now largely undisputed; and the dangers of loneliness are also increasingly well-recognized. For instance, a recent meta-analysis found that poor social relationships led to 29% increased risk for coronary heart disease, and a 32% increased risk for stroke. Our own prior investigations on the neurobiology of primate social bonds, like many others, have focused on males. Females represent a crucial and under-studied population when it comes to both psychiatric disorders of social behavior and studies of primate pair-bonding. Females are also more likely to be diagnosed with affective disorders, such as major depressive disorder, which may have critically understudied social risk factors, such as social stress. Here we propose a series of investigations into the neurobiological basis of attachment in female titi monkeys, a socially monogamous New World primate, using pharmacology and functional imaging to address fundamental questions about the substrates for sociality. Our overarching hypothesis is that the transition from attachment to parents to attachment to a pair-mate, may rely on neuropeptide receptor function, particularly the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin. We will study these questions in adolescent and adult female titi monkeys. We will use behavioral pharmacology to investigate the effects of oxytocin and vasopressin manipulation on the fundamental traits of an attachment (preference for the partner/parent, distress upon separation, and social buffering). We use functional imaging to examine dynamic changes in glucose uptake in areas that we know to have oxytocin or vasopressin receptors in titi monkeys, in response to manipulations including the presence or absence of an attachment figure. Finally, we will use molecular techniques to examine changes in methylation of the oxytocin and vasopressin receptors across the course of pair-bonding, separation, and buffering from stress.