Shared neural circuits of prosocial and parenting behaviors in the hypothalamus

项目摘要/摘要 从属照顾行为对于一个社会物种的生存和福祉是必不可少的。具体来说， 亲社会抚慰行为可以改善苦恼个体的身心健康。同样， 父母的照顾对后代的生存至关重要，也有利于后代的福利。然而，尽管 移情亲社会行为和父母照顾对发展和维持的重要性 社会关系，他们潜在的神经回路仍然没有完全被描述出来。而亲社会的护理是 主要针对成年动物，一项关于亲社会护理起源的长期建议指出 父母照料的潜在进化根源：支持无助子女的需要推动了 神经、化学和心理敏感度，以检测他人需求的上下文线索。建议数 研究将探索这些行为背后的共享神经回路，提供对 服务于社会归属的基本原则。虽然我们知道很多关于积极控制的知识 作为父母，抚慰亲社会行为的神经回路并没有得到很好的定义。内侧视前区 区域(MPOA)是调节父母养育行为的关键区域。最近的证据表明，MPOA可能会 也参与调节啮齿动物的亲社会安慰行为。其他方面的证据表明 腹侧被盖抑制传入的多巴胺能系统在亲子行为和育儿行为中的作用 面积(VTA)。这一建议假设抑制MPOA-VTA电路在功能上是重要的，因为 小鼠亲社会行为和亲子行为的共享节点。我的核心假设将在两个阶段得到检验 具体目标：(1)确定投射到VTA的抑制性MPOA神经元是否控制附属同种异体整形 和父母的行为，以及(2)表征这些如何编码社会感官提示以及 子女导向和同种导向的照看行为。总体而言，这些实验将扩大 我们对塑造亲社会行为和育儿行为的神经回路的理解，这对 基本社会纽带的形成。对MPOA-VTA和 它在亲社会和父母回路中的作用将提供对父母照顾在儿童中长期被假设的作用的见解 哺乳动物作为社会联系的起源。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Affiliative caregiving behaviors are essential for the survival and well-being of a social species. Specifically, prosocial comforting behavior can improve the physical and mental health of distressed individuals. Similarly, parental care is critical for offspring survival and also benefits the welfare of offspring. However, despite the importance of both empathetic prosocial behaviors and parental caregiving for developing and maintaining social bonds, their underlying neural circuitry remain incompletely characterized. While prosocial care is primarily directed towards adult animals, a long-standing proposal for the origin of prosocial care points to potential evolutionary roots in parental care: the need to support helpless offspring drove the development of neural, chemical, and psychological sensitivity to detect contextual cues of others’ needs. The proposed research will explore the shared neural circuits underlying these behaviors, providing insight into the fundamental principles subserving social affiliation. While much is known about the positive control of parenting, the neural circuitry of comforting prosocial behavior is not as well defined. The medial preoptic area (MPOA) is a key region for regulating parenting behaviors. Recent evidence suggests the MPOA may also be involved in modulating prosocial comforting behavior in rodents. Other lines of evidence implicate the dopaminergic system in affiliative and parenting behavior through inhibitory inputs to the ventral tegmental area (VTA). This proposal hypothesizes that the inhibitory MPOA-VTA circuit is functionally significant as a shared node for prosocial and parental behaviors in mice. My central hypothesis will be tested in two specific aims: (1) determine if inhibitory MPOA neurons projecting to the VTA control affiliative allogrooming and parental behavior, and (2) characterize how these encode social sensory cues as well as offspring-directed and conspecific-directed caregiving behavior. Collectively, these experiments will expand our understanding of the neural circuits shaping both prosocial and parenting behaviors, which are critical to the formation of fundamental social bonds. A more robust mechanistic understanding of the MPOA-VTA and its functions in prosocial and parental circuits will offer insights into the long-postulated role of parental care in mammals as the origin of social affiliation.