High precision feeding system

作为一个社会群体的一部分，产生了需要专门的行为和神经生物学反应的需求。社会神经科学是一个新兴的、最近才被定义的领域，旨在理解社会行为的神经生物学基础。我和我的学生的研究项目集中在哺乳动物社会行为认知方面的神经生物学。在许多社会行为范式中，我们一直使用的一种社会行为范式是食物偏好的社会获得，即一个幼稚的动物，一个观察者，与一个最近被喂食的同物，一个示范者互动。随后，当观察者在两种新的饮食中做出选择时，他会表现出对演示者吃过的食物的偏好。我们正在用3种啮齿类动物研究各种神经生物学系统在这种范式中的作用；老鼠，老鼠和沙鼠。对这种模式的适当研究需要使用一种精确的系统来测量动物在选择测试情况下的食物摄入量。目前，我们正在使用10套高度精确的供料系统，这使我们能够收集高质量和可靠的数据。然而，有限的单位数量使我们的研究进展非常缓慢。额外的单元将允许我们一次测试50只动物，这将大大提高学生访问系统的机会，以及我实验室的整体生产力，从而显著推进加拿大社会神经科学研究的步伐。识别为正常社会行为服务的神经和激素过程有助于开发异常社会行为的新疗法，从而帮助解决一些令人烦恼的人类疾病。其中包括自闭症谱系障碍、精神分裂症和分裂典型障碍、社交恐惧症和焦虑，以及过度攻击和暴力。此外，考虑到个体和社会学习在神经生物学上可能是不同的，今天对社会学习机制的最低限度的了解是评估各种药物（例如新药物和旧药物治疗）对学习和记忆的严重缺陷。我们的研究将有助于填补这一知识空白，并有助于推动加拿大社会神经科学的研究。

Being part of a social group creates needs that require specialized behavioral and neurobiological responses. The novel and recently defined field of social neuroscience aims at understanding the neurobiological bases of social behavior. My and my students' research program focuses on the neurobiology of cognitive aspects of social behavior in mammals. Among many, one social behavioral paradigm that we use consistently is the social acquisition of food preferences, whereby a naive animal, an observer, interacts with a recently fed conspecific, a demonstrator. The observer, when subsequently given a choice between two novel diets, exhibits a preference for the food that was eaten by the demonstrator. We are investigating the involvement of various neurobiological systems in this paradigm with 3 rodent species; mice, rats and gerbils. The appropriate study of this paradigm requires the use of a precise system for the measurement of the food intake by animals in a choice test situation. We are currently utilizing 10 units of a highly precise feeding system which allow us to collect high quality and reliable data. However, the limited number of units renders our research progress very slow. Additional units that would allow us to test 50 animals at a time would significantly improve the opportunities for students to access the system as well as the overall productivity of my laboratory, thus significantly advancing the pace of Canadian research in social neuroscience. Identifying the neural and hormonal processes subserving normal social behavior could aid in the development of novel treatments of abnormal social behavior, thus helping several vexing human disorders. Among many, these include autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and schizotypical disorders, social phobias and anxiety, as well as hyperaggression and violence. Furthermore, given that individual and social learning can be neurobiologically different, today's minimal knowledge of the mechanisms of social learning is a serious drawback for the evaluation of various agents (e.g. of new and old (!) drug therapies) on learning and memory. Our research will contribute to filling this gap in knowledge and help to advance research in social neuroscience in Canada.