Shedding Light on Social Reward Circuitry: (Un)common Blueprints in Humans and Rodents


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Date

2021-04-01

Publication Type

Review Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

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Data

Abstract

Human behavior is strongly influenced by our motivation to establish social relationships and maintain them throughout life. Despite the importance of social behavior across species, it is still unclear how neural mechanisms drive social actions. Rodent models have been used for decades to unravel the neural pathways and substrates of social interactions. With the advent of novel approaches to selectively modulate brain circuits in animal models, unprecedented testing of brain regions and neuromodulators that encode social information can be achieved. However, it is unclear which classes of social behavior and related neural circuits can be generalized across species and which are unique to humans. There is a growing need to define a unified blueprint of social brain systems. Here, we review human and rodent literature on the brain’s social actuators, specifically focusing on social motivation. We discuss the potential of implementing multimodal neuroimaging to guide us toward a consensus of brain areas and circuits for social behavior regulation. Understanding the circuital similarity and diversity is the critical step to improve the translation of research findings from rodents to humans.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

27 (2)

Pages / Article No.

159 - 183

Publisher

SAGE

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

social behavior; social reward; social motivation; fMRI; translational neuroimaging; rodent; human

Organisational unit

03963 - Wenderoth, Nicole / Wenderoth, Nicole check_circle

Notes

Funding

173984 - Pharmacogenetic fMRI in brain circuits underlying social motivation and repetitive behavior (SNF)

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