Collaborative Research: NCS: Foundations of learning: individual variation, plasticity, and evolution

合作研究：NCS：学习基础：个体差异、可塑性和进化

• 批准号: 2219739
• 负责人: Erin Hecht
• 金额: $ 26.75万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-15 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2219739&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; NCS; Foundations; learning

Humans have remarkably plastic brains; adaptations for learning are perhaps the hallmark evolutionary trait of our species. This project will examine learning-related aspects of brain organization in great ape species that are close evolutionary relatives of humans – bonobos and chimpanzees – using noninvasive tests and archived brain samples and images. The work focuses on two learned skills that were important factors in human evolution: tool use and language. One analysis will use archived brain images from previous studies combined with new behavioral tests of skill learning. Apes will receive training in evolutionarily-relevant, naturalistic tool use skills, and the investigators will measure how individual variation in brain organization is related to skill learning. Another analysis will examine brain organization in apes that have and have not undergone training to use language-like systems, including hand signs and pictogram boards. The investigators will examine how language training is related to learning-related changes in the brain. Results are expected to shed light on probable brain changes during the evolution of the human species, provide insight on neural mechanisms of real-world skill learning in primate species closely related to humans, and facilitate understanding of how individual variation in brain structure is related to individual variation in behavior and cognition. This project will use a cross-disciplinary, comparative, integrative approach to examine how individual variation in brain anatomy influences learning trajectories in the context of real-world, evolutionarily relevant skills. It also examines the interaction between acquired, plastic changes in the brain resulting from learning during an individual’s lifetime, and evolved, heritable changes resulting from natural selection across generations. The project brings together methodological and theoretical approaches from neuroscience and neuroimaging, anthropology, archaeology, and animal behavior. Identification of plastic changes resulting from language training in great apes will provide a new window on the evolution of language circuits in our own species and will for the first time add crucial neurobiological information to landmark, long-running language-training studies in apes. Additionally, individual variation in chimpanzee and bonobo brain anatomy will be linked to differences in learning trajectories in two evolutionarily-relevant, real-world skills: simple stone tool knapping and nut cracking. Together, this research will provide important new insight on brain changes underlying acquisition of learned skills both on the timescale of individual lifetimes (plasticity) and the timescale of evolved, species-level change (adaptation).This project is funded by the Integrated Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) program, which is jointly supported by the Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

人类的塑料大脑非常出色。学习适应可能是我们物种的标志性进化特征。该项目将使用非侵入性测试以及存档的脑样本和图像来检查大猿类物种中与学习相关的方面，这些方面是人类（Bonobos and Bonobos and Imakenes）的密切进化亲戚（Bonobos和Bonobos and Imains）。这项工作着重于两个学习的技能，这些技能是人类进化中的重要因素：工具使用和语言。一项分析将使用先前研究的存档大脑图像，并结合新的技能学习行为测试。猿类将接受与进化相关的自然工具使用技能的培训，调查人员将衡量大脑组织中的个体变异与技能学习如何相关。另一项分析将检查猿类的大脑组织，这些猿类已经接受并且没有接受过培训以使用类似语言的系统，包括手标志和象形图板。研究人员将研究语言培训与大脑中与学习相关的变化的关系。预计结果将揭示人类进化过程中可能的大脑变化，从而深入了解与人类密切相关的私人物种中现实世界技能学习的神经元机制，并促进对大脑结构中个体变异与行为和认知的个体变异如何相关的理解。该项目将使用跨学科的，比较的，综合的方法来研究脑解剖学中的个体变异如何在现实世界中，进化相关的技能的背景下影响学习轨迹。它还研究了因在个人一生中学习而导致的获得的塑料变化的相互作用，并进化，可遗传的变化是由于几代人的自然选择而产生的。该项目汇集了神经科学和神经影像学，人类学，考古学和动物行为的方法论和理论方法。大猿语言训练引起的塑料变化的识别将为我们自己物种中语言电路的演变提供一个新的窗口，并首次将在猿类中的长期运行语言训练中添加至关重要的神经生物学信息。此外，黑猩猩和bonobo脑解剖结构的个人变化将与两个与进化相关的现实世界技能中的学习轨迹差异有关：简单的石材工具编织和螺母开裂。这项研究将共同​​提供有关大脑变化的重要新见解。学到的技能在个人生命时期（可塑性）和进化，物种层面变化（适应）的时间尺度上，该项目由理解神经和认知系统（NCS）计划的综合策略提供资金。 （EHR），工程（ENG）以及社会，行为和经济科学（SBE）。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准，被视为通过评估来获得支持。