A New Animal Model of Social Reward

社会奖励的新动物模型

• 批准号: 9036078
• 负责人: DONNA L MANEY
• 金额: $ 19.5万
• 依托单位: EMORY UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-04-01 至 2018-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9036078
• 关键词: Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Animal Model; Area; Autistic Disorder; Automobile Driving; Behavior; Behavioral; Behavioral Assay; Biological Assay; Birds; Breeding; Caregivers; Child; Communication; Complex; Computer Analysis; Computing Methodologies; Data; Development; Disease; Educational process of instructing; Ensure; Exposure to; Fathers; Finches; Funding; Generations; Genes; Goals; Hearing; Human; Incentives; Learning; Mammals; Maps; Measures; Mental disorders; Methods; Modeling; Motivation; Neurobiology; Neuropeptides; Operant Conditioning; Oxytocin; Oxytocin Receptor; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Pathway interactions; Pharmacology; Phenotype; Process; Production; Psyche structure; Public Health; Qualifying; Receptor Signaling; Recruitment Activity; Research; Rewards; Role; Sampling; Signal Transduction; Skills Development; Social Development; Social Interaction; Songbirds; Stress; System; Testing; Time; Tweens; United States National Institutes of Health; Universities; Vertebrates; Work; cognitive development; collaborative environment; critical period; design; early experience; experience; incentive salience; information processing; innovation; joint attention; knock-down; male; model development; motor control; neural circuit; neurobiological mechanism; neuromechanism; neuroregulation; novel; offspring; preference; prototype; psychopathic personality; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; response; sex; skill acquisition; social; social anxiety; social communication; social learning; social neuroscience; success; tool; tutoring; vocal learning; vocalization; ward; zebra finch

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Early disruption of social reward can have devastating effects on the development of skills such as initiation of joint attention and vocal communication. Because most existing animal models of social reward focus on adults, a new model is needed for understanding early critical periods of social development in juveniles. The objective of the proposed work is to fill that gap by establishing an animal model of early social reward in juveniles interacting with caregivers. To achieve this goal, the research team will develop an assay to quantify and interrelate social motivation, social preferences, and vocal development in young zebra finches. The rationale for this approach is as follows: First, even before they begin to sing, young zebra finches are highly motivated to hear adult song and will key-press for access to it. Thus, social motivation can be easily quantified. Second, song learning in juveniles is contingent upon social bids (e.g., key presses to hear song) and can also be quantified using established methods, allowing the team to test for relationships between social motivation and vocal learning. Third, young finches prefer to learn song from caregivers rather than unfamiliar adults, providing the opportunity to understand how early social experience dictates social preferences and how those preferences drive vocal learning. In Aim 1, the team will develop an assay to obtain densely sampled, longitudinal data on these processes over the entire trajectory of sensorimotor vocal development. A key innovation of this aim will be to use novel computational methods, originally developed to understand the contributions of social orienting to vocal development in human children, to show the relationships among social motivation, social preferences, and vocal development in this new animal model. Aim 1 will produce a tool to assess the behavioral effects of pharmacological manipulations and gene knockdown within social reward pathways, allowing precise characterization of the relevant neural circuits. To begin capitalizing on the new assay, in Aim 2 the team will test the effects of oxytocin receptor (OTR) blockade on the development of social preferences and vocal learning. The central hypothesis underlying these aims is that OTR signaling early during development, contingent with social interactions with a caregiver, directs juveniles to attend preferentially to that caregiver. As a result, juveniles will more accurately copy that caregiver's vocalizations. A second key innovation is that the project will expand our understanding of oxytocin to include critical periods of social development as well as learning-both of which are potentially rich but grossly underdeveloped areas of research. The new assay will make it possible to model juvenile-initiated social bids in the context of parent-offspring interactions, as well as the relationship between social reward and the development of vocal communication. Because this species has a short generation time and can be maintained in relatively large numbers, the assay will provide new, important opportunities for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying early social reward and the developmental sequelae of its disruption.

 描述（通过应用程序提供）：社会奖励的早期破坏可能会对技能的发展产生毁灭性的影响，例如共同关注和声音交流的倡议。由于大多数现有的社会奖励动物模型都集中在成年人上，因此需要一种新的模型来理解少年的社会发展早期。拟议工作的目的是通过在与看护人互动的少年中建立早期社会奖励的动物模型来填补这一空白。为了实现这一目标，研究团队将制定一项评估，以量化和相互关联的社会动机，社会偏好和年轻斑马罚款的人声发展。这种方法的理由如下：首先，即使在他们开始唱歌之前，年轻的斑马罚款也很有动力听到成人歌曲，并将键入钥匙供访问它。那就很容易量化社会动机。其次，少年学习的歌曲学习取决于社交投标（例如，钥匙按下聆听歌曲），也可以使用既定的方法进行量化，从而使团队能够测试社交动机和声音学习之间的关系。第三，年轻的雀科更喜欢从照顾者那里学习歌曲，而不是陌生的成年人，提供了了解早期社交体验如何决定社交偏好以及这些偏好如何推动声音学习的机会。在AIM 1中，团队将开发一项评估，以在感觉运动声音发展的整个轨迹上获得有关这些过程的纵向数据。该目标的一个关键创新将是使用新颖的计算方法，最初开发的旨在了解社会对人类儿童的声音发展的贡献，以在这种新动物模型中展示社会动机，社会偏好和声乐发展之间的关系。 AIM 1将产生一种工具，以评估社会奖励途径中药物操纵和基因敲低的行为影响，从而可以精确地表征相关的神经元电路。为了开始利用新测定，在AIM 2中，团队将测试氧气受体（OTR）封锁对社会偏好和声音学习发展的影响。这些目的的基本假设是，开发期间的OTR信号（包括与照料者的社交互动）指示少年优先参加该护理人员。结果，少年将更准确地复制看护人的发声。第二个关键创新是，该项目将扩大我们对氧气的理解，包括社会发展的关键时期以及学习的研究，这些时期可能是丰富的，但欠发达的研究领域。新测定将使在父母互动的背景下建模少年引发的社会投标，以及社会奖励与声乐交流的发展之间的关系。因为该物种的生成时间很短，并且可以保持相对较大的数量，因此该测定将为理解早期社会奖励和破坏的发展后遗症的神经机制提供新的重要机会。