Elucidating social competence: neural mechanisms for competition and cooperation

TITLE: Elucidating social competence: neural mechanisms for competition and cooperation ABSTRACT The ability to shift social behavior based on available information, known as social competence, is vital for social animals’ group cohesion and survival. Deficits in social competence are a hallmark of neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism spectrum disorders, major depression, and schizophrenia, significantly impairing patients' quality of life. Past neuroscience research has largely failed to capture the dynamics of behavioral shifts because it has primarily isolated and studied one type of behavior. Furthermore, most past research has ignored the social factors that may influence behavioral changes. Competition and cooperation are two evolutionarily intertwined social behaviors that are crucial for social competence and group survival across species. Past studies show that the prefrontal cortex is important for competition and cooperation, but these behaviors have been mostly studied in isolation limiting our understanding of how neural computations shift behavior. This project aims to fill this gap by combining optical methods, chemogenetics and machine learning to investigate the role of the prelimbic cortex (PL) and its projections to the lateral hypothalamus (LH) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) in modulating both competitive and cooperative behaviors. We hypothesize that these two PL subpopulations are part of a network that shifts behavior towards competition or cooperation depending on the context. Using our novel behavioral tasks for mice, we can study a wide array of behavior states, including high competition, low competition, selfish choices, cooperative behavior, and shifts between cooperative and competitive states. In Aim 1 we will record the same PL-BLA or PL-LH neurons across cooperative and competitive states and identify how they encode behavioral shifts in these states. In Aim 2 we will turn to multi-site electrophysiology to record local field potentials from the PL-LH-BLA network simultaneously to study how network level activity encodes behavioral shifts between competition and cooperation. In Aim 3, we will investigate the causal roles of PL-LH neurons, PL-BLA neurons and reciprocal projections from BLA and LH to PL in competition and cooperation. The findings will advance our understanding of the prefrontal mechanisms that govern adaptive social behaviors and may inform therapeutic strategies to enhance social functioning in neuropsychiatric disorders. Project Number: 1R01MH139895-01 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) | Principal Investigator: Nancy Padilla Coreano | Institution: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, GAINESVILLE, FL | Award Amount: $626,557 | Activity Code: R01 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZMH1 ERB-M (02)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11121522