Neural Representation of Learning Social Interactions in Non-Human Primates

非人类灵长类动物学习社交互动的神经表征

• 批准号: 10553102
• 负责人: Melissa C Franch
• 金额: $ 1.91万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10553102
• 关键词: Address; Affect; Animal Behavior; Animals; Area; Behavior; Behavioral; Brain; Brain region; Communication; Complex; Cues; Data; Decision Making; Environment; Event; Evolution; Experimental Designs; Eye; Feedback; Food; Head; Health; Human; Impairment; Individual; Intelligence; Investigation; Laboratories; Learning; Measures; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Methods; Monkeys; Motivation; Neurons; Performance; Population; Prefrontal Cortex; Primates; Probability; Process; Research; Rewards; Role; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Social Behavior; Social Concepts; Social Interaction; Structure; Testing; Texture; Therapeutic Intervention; Time; Visual; Visual Cortex; Visual Pathways; area V4; artificial neural network; autism spectrum disorder; base; body language; driving force; experimental study; extrastriate visual cortex; high reward; improved; neural; neural correlate; neural network; neuromechanism; neurophysiology; neuropsychiatric disorder; nonhuman primate; novel; novel strategies; prevent; response; restraint; sample fixation; social; social cognition; social cooperation; social deficits; social learning; support vector machine; targeted treatment; visual information; visual learning; visual processing; visual tracking; wireless

Project Summary/Abstract. Visually guided social behavior, specifically cooperation, is one of the primary forces driving the evolution of intelligence and is critical to the health and survival of our species. Like humans, non-human primates also cooperate in natural and laboratory environments. Recent studies in the field of primate social neurophysiology show that neurons in different brain regions can encode socially relevant variables, such as reward and actions of self and other. However, cortical areas have not been studied simultaneously during social interaction, and therefore neural network computations of social cognition are not well understood. Furthermore, the neural correlates of learning advanced social concepts, such as cooperation, have not been studied and remain unknown. A major limitation preventing our understanding of the neural underpinnings of social cognition is the lack of a suitable framework to allow us to study how it emerges in real time from interactions among brain networks. Traditionally, examining the neural bases of social behavior in non-human primates has been performed using stationary experiments in a laboratory environment in which the head and body are restrained. However, it has become increasingly understood that studying the brain in spatially confined, artificial laboratory rigs poses severe limits on our capacity to understand the function of brain circuits. To overcome these limitations, I propose a novel approach using high-yield wireless neural recordings and eye tracking to study the cortical dynamics of social interactions across multiple cortical areas involved in processing visual information (mid-level visual cortex V4) and decision making (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) while two freely moving monkeys learn to cooperate for food reward. I hypothesize that learning social interactions will induce changes in 1) the encoding of socially relevant variables such as social visual cues and choice in each area and 2) functional connectivity between areas. To investigate this hypothesis, I will record animals' behaviors (Aim 1), and eye data and neural activity (Aim 2-3) simultaneously as they learn to cooperate under different conditions. While learning cooperation, I expect animal behaviors, such as the coordination of their actions, to improve (Aim 1). I also predict animal behaviors will be sensitive to reward value and fairness, showing less motivation to cooperate for small or unequal rewards, but will improve with learning (Aim 1). I anticipate the discovery of neural computations underlying social cognition within (Aim 2) and between brain areas (Aim 3) and that neural encoding of salient information, such as social visual cues and actions, will improve as animals learn to cooperate. This project provides a novel method and use of analyses to study learning social interactions. This research will further our understanding of the social brain by elucidating the role of neural networks underlying social cognition. Most importantly, the results of this investigation will provide long-term candidate brain areas and behaviors that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention in individuals suffering from social dysfunction.

项目摘要/摘要。视觉引导的社会行为，特别是合作，是主要的社会行为之一 推动智力进化的力量，对我们物种的健康和生存至关重要。和人类一样， 非人类灵长类动物也在自然和实验室环境中合作。灵长类动物领域的最新研究 社会神经生理学表明，不同大脑区域的神经元可以编码与社会相关的变量，例如 作为自我和他人的奖励和行为。然而，皮层区域尚未同时得到研究。 社会互动，以及社会认知的神经网络计算还没有被很好地理解。 此外，学习高级社会概念（例如合作）的神经关联尚未得到证实。 研究并仍然未知。阻碍我们理解神经基础的一个主要限制 社会认知是缺乏一个合适的框架来让我们研究它是如何实时出现的 大脑网络之间的相互作用。传统上，研究非人类社会行为的神经基础 灵长类动物已在实验室环境中进行了固定实验，其中头部和 身体受到束缚。然而，人们越来越认识到，在空间上研究大脑 有限的人工实验室设备严重限制了我们理解大脑回路功能的能力。 为了克服这些限制，我提出了一种使用高产量无线神经记录和眼睛的新方法 跟踪以研究参与处理的多个皮层区域的社交互动的皮层动态 视觉信息（中级视觉皮层 V4）和决策（背外侧前额叶皮层），而两个 自由活动的猴子学会合作以获得食物奖励。我假设学习社交互动会 引起以下方面的变化：1）社会相关变量的编码，例如社会视觉线索和每个变量的选择 区域和2）区域之间的功能连接。为了研究这个假设，我将记录动物的行为 （目标 1），以及眼睛数据和神经活动（目标 2-3），同时他们学习在不同的条件下进行合作 状况。在学习合作的同时，我期望动物的行为，例如行动的协调，能够 改进（目标 1）。我还预测动物行为将对奖励价值和公平性敏感，表现得更少 为获得较小或不平等的奖励而合作的动机，但会随着学习而提高（目标 1）。我预计 发现大脑区域内部（目标 2）和大脑区域之间（目标 3）和社会认知的神经计算 随着动物学习，显着信息（例如社交视觉线索和动作）的神经编码将会得到改善 进行合作。该项目提供了一种新颖的方法和分析方法来研究学习社交互动。 这项研究将通过阐明神经网络的作用来进一步加深我们对社交大脑的理解 潜在的社会认知。最重要的是，这项调查的结果将提供长期候选人 可以针对患有社交障碍的个体进行治疗干预的大脑区域和行为 功能障碍。