The Role of the Primate Amygdala in Social and Affective Touch

灵长类动物杏仁核在社交和情感接触中的作用

基本信息

批准号：
10412986
负责人：
Katalin M Gothard
金额：
$ 50.46万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2019-09-01 至 2024-05-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10412986
关键词：
Address Affect Affective Air Amygdaloid structure Area Back Behavior Body Regions Brain Cells Development Dimensions Disease Electric Stimulation Emotional Emotional Bonds Esthesia Failure Failure to Thrive Foundations Future General Population Grooming Head Health Human Individual Institutionalized Child Language Left Life Location Macaca Mechanics Mental disorders Modality Monitor Monkeys Mood Disorders Neck Neurons Neurosciences Orphanages Pain Parents Pathway interactions Pattern Perception Physiological Play Primates Process Property Reporting Research Rewards Role Schizophrenia Schools Sensory Signal Transduction Skin Social Behavior Social Phobia Somatosensory Cortex Stimulus Structure Syndrome Tactile Testing Touch sensation Vision Vocabulary affective neuroscience autism spectrum disorder base behavioral response critical period experience insight neural circuit neurophysiology nonhuman primate preference receptive field relating to nervous system response sensory stimulus social social attachment social communication social factors social neuroscience social relationships somatosensory vibration

项目摘要

Touch is our first emotional language – the language that allows us to receive and understand affective signals and help lay the foundation for future social bonds. Despite the widely recognized importance of touch in brain development and in affective and social communication throughout life, remarkably little is known about its cellular neural substrate. Relatively recent discoveries showed that the skin contains specializations for detecting and evaluating the pleasantness of touch. It is unclear how these signals might be processed in the brain. It is clear, however, that the amygdala is required for processing the social and emotional significance of sensory stimuli, regardless of modality. Studies that showed this role of the primate amygdala focused almost exclusively on vision. Recently we have reported the presence of touch-responsive neurons in the primate amygdala. We will expand on this initial finding and determine how these touch-responsive cells respond to the basic sensory features of tactile stimuli: location and intensity (Aim 1). Next, we will determine whether tactile cells in the amygdala encode the subjective value of touch (Aim 2). Given the important role of the amygdala in processing social stimuli, we will then determine how the social dimension of touch factors into the activity of tactile cells (Aim 3). Specifically, we will simultaneously monitor neural responses to touch in the amygdala and somatosensory cortex and compare neural responses to the same type of social touch, delivered to the same skin area, by two individuals with whom the recipient has a different social experience. We expect tactile cells in the amygdala, but not in the somatosensory cortex, to discriminate between social partners, supporting the idea that the amygdala extracts the social-affective dimension (value) of stimuli. Collectively, these three aims provide a conceptually new and technically advanced physiological framework for understanding how the primate amygdala responds to and evaluates tactile stimuli that vary in subjective value and social significance. Understanding the cellular machinery of affective touch in the primate brain is expected to provide important insights into why touch processing is so profoundly altered in functional pain syndromes, autism, and numerous other mental disorders.

触摸是我们的第一种情感语言 - 该语言使我们能够接收和理解情感信号并帮助未来的社会纽带奠定基础。尽管公认的重要性是触摸大脑发展以及一生中的情感和社会交流，很少关于其细胞神经底物的了解。相对较新的发现表明皮肤包含检测和评估触摸令人愉悦的专业知识。目前尚不清楚这些信号如何但是，很明显，加工需要杏仁核不论方式如何，感觉刺激的社会和情感意义。研究表明这一角色的研究主要的杏仁核几乎专注于视觉。最近我们报道了存在初级杏仁核中的触摸反应性神经元。我们将扩大此初步发现和确定这些接触响应的细胞如何响应触觉刺激的基本感觉特征：位置和强度（目标1）。接下来，我们将确定杏仁核中的触觉细胞是否编码主观触摸的价值（AIM 2）。鉴于杏仁核在处理社会刺激中的重要作用，我们将确定触摸因素如何进入触觉细胞活动的社会维度（AIM 3）。具体来说，我们只需监视神经调查器即可接触杏仁核和体感皮质并将神经反应与相同类型的社交触摸进行比较，并交付给同一皮肤区域与接受者有不同社交经验的个人。我们期望在杏仁核，但不在体感皮层中，以区分社会伙伴，支持杏仁核提取刺激的社会影响力（价值）的想法。总的来说，这三个目的在概念上为新的，技术上的高级物理框架提供了了解主要杏仁核如何反应并评估触觉刺激的变化主观价值和社会意义。了解情感触摸的蜂窝机械灵长类动物的大脑有望提供重要的见解，说明为什么触摸处理如此深刻功能性疼痛综合症，自闭症和许多其他精神障碍的改变。