Naturalistic and translational decision making assays

自然和转化决策分析

• 批准号: 2898179
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2898179
• 关键词: Naturalistic; translational; decision; making; assays

Decision making is a crucial aspect of everyday life for all animals. From lower-level perceptual and perceptuo-motor guided decisions about whether and when to cross a road (humans) or choosing an escape or foraging path (animals) to higher-level decisions about selecting a suitable habitat (animals) or buying a house (humans). While some decisions are only relevant for humans (e.g. buying a house) many others are common to different mammalian species (e.g. choosing on the best course of action to avoid immediate threats or navigate an unfamiliar environment). Such decisions are likely to be similarly affected by internal states such as anxiety and stress and personality traits such as cognitive flexibility and tendency towards addiction. Understanding human DM and, in particular, how factors such as stress and/or clinical disorders might impact upon DM is critical. To fully understand mechanisms of DM in human requires us to consider both behaviour and how this links to the neuronal substrates that drive this behaviour. Revealing the detailed neuronal substrate can only be achieved in experimental animals in which recording and manipulation of specific neuronal circuitry can be performed. A key challenge then is to establish appropriate behavioural assays that can be reliably translated between humans and rodents.In this project we will develop a range of principled decision-making tasks that are comparable for animals and humans. Human tasks will take advantage of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies available in the Virtual Reality Research (VR2) Facility at the University of Manchester (https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/VR2/). VR enables us to place the human in a virtual real-world DM tasks while retaining control of key experimental variables. In addition in VR it is possible to impose realistic stressors on the human to mimic equivalent tasks in rodents. Rodent tasks will be performed in real physical environments adapted to match parameters of the human tasks. We anticipate that the findings from this project will be important for laying down a testbed of paradigms for future investigation of neural substrates of DM and eventually developing neural-based models of altered decision making (e.g. in addiction) to underpin novel treatments.This work fits within the BBSRC's Theme: Advancing the Frontiers of Bioscience Discovery under the Understanding the Rules of Life subheading. We will be addressing basic questions regarding the nature of choice in both humans and rodents. In addition, the research has the potential to underpin future research within the strategic challenge: Bioscience for an Integrated Understanding of Health. Understanding the mechanisms of choice (both cognitive, perceptual and perceptuo-motor) has implications for individuals and clinical groups in which such processes are altered (e.g. in addiction). This work is necessary to enable us to develop neural models of altered decision making in such groups and may underpin future treatments for these conditions. This project will benefit from an in vivo skills supplement to enable us to understand behaviour and motor strategies (via visuo-motor and head/body and eye movement). These will be measured during free movement to determine which part of the visual environment is captured by animal retinae. Achieving this will enable to understand how rodents position their eyes to detect salient visual stimuli (e.g. an approaching predator), how they coordinate eye movements with spontaneous behaviours such as locomotion and rearing and how such motor decisions are driven by parameters of the environment. Under the in vivo training component the student will develop skills in: Chronic implantation of miniature cameras for tracking eye movements in freely moving animals Behavioural tests of visually guided behaviours paired with recordings of eye and head/body movements

决策是所有动物日常生活的关键方面。从低级感知和感知运动的指导性决定是关于是否以及何时越过道路（人类）或选择逃生或觅食路径（动物）到选择合适的栖息地（动物）或购买房屋（人类）（人类）的高级决定。尽管某些决定仅与人类（例如购买房屋）有关，许多其他决定与不同的哺乳动物物种共有（例如，在最佳的行动方案中选择以避免立即威胁或驾驶不熟悉的环境）。这些决定可能会受到内部状态的类似影响，例如焦虑，压力和人格特征，例如认知灵活性和成瘾的趋势。特别是了解人类DM，尤其是压力和/或临床疾病等因素对DM的影响至关重要。为了充分理解人类DM的机制，我们要求我们同时考虑行为以及这如何与驱动这种行为的神经元基板联系起来。只有在实验动物中才能实现详细的神经元底物，其中记录和操纵特定的神经元电路。然后，一个关键的挑战是建立可以在人类和啮齿动物之间可靠地翻译的适当行为分析。在这个项目中，我们将制定一系列有原则的决策任务，这些任务可与动物和人类相提并论。人类任务将利用曼彻斯特大学虚拟现实研究（VR2）设施中可用的虚拟现实（VR）技术（https://sites.manchester.ac.ac.uk/vr2/）。 VR使我们能够将人类置于虚拟现实世界DM任务中，同时保留对关键实验变量的控制。此外，在VR中，还可以对人类对啮齿动物的同等任务施加逼真的压力源。啮齿动物任务将在适应人类任务参数的实际物理环境中执行。我们预计，该项目的发现对于为DM的神经底物进行未来研究，并最终开发出基于神经的决策做出改变的神经模型（例如成瘾）对基于新颖的治疗的研究。我们将解决有关人类和啮齿动物中选择的性质的基本问题。此外，这项研究有可能在战略挑战中为未来的研究奠定基础：生物科学，以融入对健康的理解。了解选择的机制（认知，感知和感知运动）对改变此类过程的个人和临床组具有影响（例如成瘾）。这项工作对于使我们能够在此类群体中开发出改变决策的神经模型是必要的，并可能为这些条件的未来治疗提供基础。该项目将受益于体内技能补充剂，以使我们能够了解行为和运动策略（通过视觉运动和头部/身体和眼动）。这些将在自由运动期间测量，以确定动物视网膜捕获的视觉环境的哪一部分。实现这一目标将使啮齿动物如何将眼睛定位为检测显着的视觉刺激（例如，接近的捕食者），它们如何与自发行为（例如运动和饲养）协调眼动作，以及如何通过环境参数驱动此类运动决策。在体内训练部分下，学生将发展技能：慢性植入微型摄像头，用于跟踪自由移动动物的眼动动物的眼动行为测试的视觉引导行为的行为测试，并与眼睛和头部/身体运动的录音配对