Johnny Bee Good: Bees as Models to Study the Hijacking of the Reward System

约翰尼·比·古德：以蜜蜂为模型来研究奖励系统的劫持

基本信息

批准号：
8527810
负责人：
GENE E ROBINSON
金额：
$ 76.1万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2009
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2009-09-30 至 2015-07-31
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

Abstract The circuits in the brain that mediate our perception of reward, known collectively as the ¿reward system,¿ couple pleasure with the essentials of life: food and reproduction. The reward system also lies at the root of some of the most tragic, harmful, and costly behaviors in our society. These include addiction to substances of abuse, obesity-related behavior, dangerous thrill seeking behavior, and aberrant sexual behavior. Research that I performed on altruistic behavior in honey bees has led me to a new insight about the reward system. Finding that the same neurochemical system that modulates selfish behavior in solitary insects modulates altruistic behavior in the highly social honey bee, I conclude that not only is the reward system vulnerable to ¿hijacking¿- -coupling to stimuli with negative consequences-- over the course of a lifetime as mentioned above, but it also is vulnerable to hijacking in evolutionary time. I propose to use ¿omic technologies (high-throughput sequencing, transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) to understand in molecular terms how to ¿flip¿ the reward system, from selfish to altruistic behavior. These analyses will be performed on a carefully selected set of closely related species of bees, some social (with altruistic behavior) and some solitary (without). The insights gained from this novel synthesis of systems biology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology will transform our understanding of drug addiction and other diseases of the reward system and provide the foundation for new forms of therapeutic intervention.

抽象的大脑中介导我们对奖励的看法的电路，共同称为“奖励系统” 与生命的要点相对愉快：食物和繁殖。奖励系统也在我们社会中一些最悲惨，最有害和昂贵的行为。其中包括补充物质虐待，与肥胖相关的行为，寻求行为的危险刺激以及异常的性行为。研究我蜜蜂的利他行为表演使我对奖励系统有了新的见解。发现在固体昆虫中调节自私行为的同一神经化学系统调节了利他主义在高度社交的蜂蜜蜜蜂中，我不仅包括奖励制度很容易受到劫持 - - 与刺激与负面后果结合 - 在一生中，如上所述，但也在进化时期容易劫持劫持。我建议使用„ Omic Technologies（高通量测序，转录组学，表观基因组学，蛋白质组学和代谢组学）以分子术语来理解如何翻转奖励系统，从自私到无私的行为。这些分析将在精心选择的一组密切相关的蜜蜂，一些社会（具有利他行为）和一些固体（没有）。从这种新型系统生物学，神经科学和进化中获得的见解生物学将改变我们对奖励系统的吸毒和其他疾病的理解，并提供新的治疗干预形式的基础。