An integrated single-neuronal, population-, local network- and stimulation-based prefrontal investigation of human social cognition

基于单个神经元、群体、局部网络和刺激的集成 人类社会认知的前沿性研究 这项提议旨在进行全面的单细胞、群体、局部电路和刺激- 基于对背侧前额叶皮质在人类社会认知中所起作用的评估。尽管仍在进行 令人惊讶的是，通过动物模型我们对社会行为基本要素的理解进展甚微 已知构成人类社会认知基础的单神经元和因果机制。一个核心 由背内侧前额叶、背外侧前额叶和前扣带回组成的区域网络 前额叶被认为在人类社会行为中起着关键作用；次级服务过程 包括情绪判断、社会推理和心理理论。与更基本的感觉运动过程不同， 这些社会过程要求个人不仅代表观察到的他人的行为或行动，而且 来推断他们隐藏的内在状态和信仰，这些内在状态和信仰本质上是不可观察和未知的。这些 高级社会过程在人类个体发育中发挥着核心作用，并在心理社会中受到广泛影响 精神分裂症、抑郁症和自闭症谱系障碍等疾病。然而，尽管它们很重要， 关于人脑中神经元的活动是如何产生这些差异的，我们知之甚少 社会认知功能或特定前额叶区域所扮演的确切角色。建立在我们独特的集团基础上 来自这些前额背侧区域的急性单神经元记录的综合经验，社会 神经科学和理论、人口分析、计算建模和实时刺激技术 通过使用一种新的结构化的多集合社会任务，这项提议旨在首次解决至关重要的 关于人类在细胞水平上如何处理社会信息的问题，什么具体的认知 这些过程涉及大脑皮层区域，无论这些过程是否可与更广义的过程相分离 认知机制，这些关键计算是如何相互联系的，以及至关重要的是，因果贡献是什么 这些前额叶区域的神经活动在行为水平上影响人类的社会认知。总而言之，这 系统的跨模式、跨学科、多机构的协作努力承诺提供 在细胞水平上对人类社会认知的前所未有的新见解，并提供了创新的新 研究前额叶背侧皮质对心理社会的预期贡献的框架 自闭症谱系障碍等病症。

An integrated single-neuronal, population-, local network- and stimulation-based prefrontal investigation of human social cognition This proposal aims to undertake a comprehensive single-cellular, population-, local circuit- and stimulation- based evaluation of the role that the dorsal prefrontal cortex plays in human social cognition. Despite ongoing progress in our understanding of basic elements of social behavior through animal models, astonishingly little is known about the single-neuronal and causal mechanisms that underlie human social cognition. A core network of areas comprising the dorsomedial prefrontal, dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex of the frontal lobe has been suggested to play a critical role in human social behavior; sub-serving processes that include emotional judgment, social reasoning and theory of mind. Unlike more basic sensorimotor processes, these social processes require individuals not only to represent the observed behavior or actions of others but to also infer their hidden internal states and beliefs which are inherently unobservable and unknown. These higher-order social processes play a central role in human ontogeny and are broadly affected in psychosocial conditions such as schizophrenia, depression and autism spectrum disorder. Yet, despite their importance, extraordinarily little is known about how the activities of neurons in the human brain give rise to these diverse social cognitive functions or what precise role specific prefrontal areas play. Building on our groups unique combined experience in acute single-neuronal recordings from the these dorsal prefrontal areas, social neuroscience and theory, population analyses, computational modeling and real-time stimulation techniques and by using a novel structured multi-set social task, this proposal aims to address, for the first time, vital questions about how social information is processed in humans at the cellular level, what specific cognitive processes are engaged across cortical areas, whether these processes are dissociable from more generalized cognitive mechanisms, how these key computations interrelate and, crucially, what causal contribution do neural activities in these prefrontal areas play in human social cognition at the behavioral level. Together, this systematic cross-modal, inter-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaborative effort promises to provide unprecedented new insights into human social cognition at the cellular level and offer an innovative new framework by which to investigate the prospective contribution of the dorsal prefrontal cortex to psychosocial conditions such as autism spectrum disorder.