Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMACTIVE (The interactive side of emotion: A neuroethological approach in freely-moving monkeys)
Période du rapport: 2022-04-01 au 2023-09-30
EMACTIVE will investigate which neurons in the primate brain are responsible for emotion recognition and the generation of emotional behaviours during social exchanges. The focus will be on a variety of specie-specific behavioral displays, signalling the current state of an animal. Leveraging macaque monkeys as a model, we apply a multidisciplinary approach to study the role of different brain regions in the control of specific emotional displays during social interactions. Moreover, we will study how these brain regions and distinct neuronal population interact to coordinate behaviour, by recording simultaneously from the brain of two interacting subjects.
So far, no available technique allows to study neural dynamics from the cellular to the whole-brain level in humans, and the available knowledge on these mechanisms indicate an extraordinary evolutionary continuity among human and non-human primates. Thus, the findings of this research can pave the way to understanding the neural mechanisms underlying human emotional behaviors and their alteration in various neuropsychiatric diseases.
So far, no available technique allows to study neural dynamics from the cellular to the whole-brain level in humans, and the available knowledge on these mechanisms indicate an extraordinary evolutionary continuity among human and non-human primates. Thus, the findings of this research can pave the way to understanding the neural mechanisms underlying human emotional behaviors and their alteration in various neuropsychiatric diseases.
In the period covered by this report we have published a couple of review articles that clarify the theoretical framework underlying the project activities in a high-impact international journal, and started to collect preliminary data with simultaneous recordings from a pair of monkey within an individual area (the same in both animals), in order to prepare the pipeline for data analysis and solve the challenges imposed by this novel experimental approach. In addition, we also investigated a variety of individual behaviours and displays in these two animals from a neuroethological perspective, leading to the preparation of preliminary reports presented in various national and international conferences and one research article, currently under revision. From the methodological and technical point of view, we are carrying out preliminary tests on viral vectors expression to verify their efficiency for opto- and chemogenetic experiments, envisaged in the subsequent phases of the project. We bought and prepared all the new equipment needed for the neuroethological experiments, and despite the unavoidable delay in the acquisition of the animals dedicated to this project due to the general shortage of non-human primates from EU providers, we could get the first group of four monkeys specifically involved in the project; we prepared them for neuroethological recordings by carrying out behavioral tests and experiments which are revealing specific social and behavioural dynamics among subjects, which will be leveraged as important variables to be investigated from the neurophysiological point of view, as soon as the neural recordings in freely interacting subjects will start.
To date, only a few studies leveraged telemetry or data-logging technologies to record neuronal activity in freely moving monkeys during close-to-natural conditions. In addition, no study has ever attempted to add the monitoring of physiological parameters (e.g. heart rate, body temperature, muscle activity) to the neuronal signals in freely moving monkeys. Therefore, the research agenda promises to reveal the neural mechanisms underlying the production of emotional and social displays in freely-interacting non-human primates, opening new lines of research in human subjects relevant for the understanding of the altered mechanisms in neurological and neuropsychiatric diseseas.