Emergent behavioral and transcriptional properties of pair bonds

项目摘要 夫妻关系在人类体验中扮演着关键角色，并深刻地影响着我们的身体和情感 健康。要让一段感情受益，两人实现共同的目标，伴侣必须共同努力。 通过互惠行动，每个人都采取行动，另一个人轮流回应。尽管具有二元性， 配对结合，绝大多数关于配对结合的研究只关注配对中的一个成员，这给我们留下了一个 对促进关系成功的伙伴之间的动态的贫乏看法。为了填补这方面的知识 GAP，我将使用配对结合的草原田鼠来研究配对结合在两者中的行为和生物学基础 粘合对的合作伙伴。我的初步数据显示，在草原田鼠中，伴侣组织他们的附属机构 债券到期时的行为。在这个提案中，我将使用计算技术来检查离散的 在生物组织的两个层面上构成有组织的配对内行为的基础的元素：行为和 抄写。在我的第一个目标中，我将利用机器学习算法来破译动物体内的 动物之间的行为序列，当被允许彼此自由互动时，伴侣表现出。 这将揭示促成配对内行为组织的行为成分。要确定 这种行为的神经分子基础，在我的第二个目标中，我将使用单核RNA测序 (SnRNA-seq)绘制草原田鼠伏隔核(NAC)和内侧核的转录图谱 前额叶皮质(MPFC)，这是两个对配对结合至关重要的大脑区域。SnRNA-seq将使我能够识别 结合后离散细胞种群的变化，将使我能够比较 结合伙伴之间的转录景观，潜在地揭示了转录的作用 在配对内行为的组织中的趋同。综合起来，这些目标将提供一个新的、双重的- 个人镜头，通过它我们可以了解配对结合，并将为我提供培训 对行为和转录的计算分析，对于我作为独立人士的职业生涯来说，这是非常宝贵的技能 研究员。

Project Summary Pair bonds play critical roles in the human experience and profoundly influence our physical and emotional health. For a bond to be beneficial and the pair to accomplish shared goals, partners must work together through reciprocal action where each person acts and the other responds in turn. Despite the dyadic nature of pair bonds, the vast majority of studies on pair bonding focus on only one member of a pair, leaving us with an impoverished view of the dynamics between partners that facilitate relationship success. To fill this knowledge gap, I will use pair bonding prairie voles to examine the behavioral and biological basis of pair bonding in both partners of bonded pairs. My preliminary data show that in prairie voles, partners organize their affiliative behavior as bonds mature. In this proposal, I will use computational techniques to examine the discrete elements that underlie organized intra-pair behavior at two levels of biological organization: behavior and transcription. In my first Aim, I will leverage machine learning algorithms to decipher the within-animal and between-animal behavioral sequences that partners exhibit when allowed to interact freely with each other. This will reveal the behavioral components that contribute to intra-pair behavioral organization. To determine the neuromolecular basis of this behavior, in my second Aim, I will use single nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) to map the transcriptional landscape of the prairie vole nucleus accumbens (NAc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), two brain regions critical for pair bonding. snRNA-seq will enable me to identify changes to discrete cellular populations upon bonding and will allow me to compare the similarity of transcriptional landscapes between bonded partners, potentially revealing a role for transcriptional convergence in the organization of intra-pair behavior. Together, these Aims will provide a new, dual- individual lens through which we can understand pair bonding and will provide me with training in the computational analysis of behavior and transcriptomics, invaluable skills for my career as an independent researcher.