The negative impact on society’s mental health by social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of social interactions in maintaining a healthy life. Reputation, cooperation, and an individual’s social ties play a crucial role in social interactions. Despite much research on the behavioral and neural basis of these psychological processes, we still lack a detailed understanding of their interdependence. The main psychological hypothesis that the NEUROGROUP projects is testing is that a social bonds strength influences cooperative behavior; similarly, cooperative behavior fosters social bonds. The main neurobiological hypothesis of this project is that the interplay of neuronal activity in the prefrontal cortex and insular cortex underpins these processes.
The objectives of NEUROGROUP are to (1) characterize the neuronal representations underlying group cooperation. (2), identify the neuronal mechanisms underlying fundamental behavioral processes in forming and maintaining social ties during naturalistic interactions in monkeys. (3) compare in monkeys and humans the association between group cooperation and social ties’ formation and maintenance.
This new line of investigation will shed light on how elementary social computations during group interactions such as social dilemmas are computed at the single-neuronal and population levels within the primate brain. By using an innovative approach, this project aims to identify the brain’s mechanisms underlying the formation of non-kin and non-reproductive alliances. Overall, this proposal will allow us to study social interactions in a way that has never been done before and will lay the groundwork for a comprehensive behavioral and neuronal mechanistic understanding of social ties and their role in our mental health.
