以色列魏兹曼科学研究所Rony Paz研究组取得最新进展。他们的最新研究揭示了注视、效价和期望共享但可分离的神经代码。这一研究成果发表在2020年9月 23日的《自然》杂志上。

他们显示了关于注视和效价的神经代码在灵长类动物中重叠，并且它们涉及两种不同的机制：一种用于结果，另一种用于期望。猴子参加了人类入侵者测试，其中人类参与者的目光是直接的或避免的，并与厌食和食欲条件相交织。他们发现杏仁核中的单个神经元编码凝视，而前扣带回皮层中的神经元编码社交情境，但不编码凝视。他们在杏仁核中识别出一个共有的群体，其针对直接和避免的凝视的神经反应，分别与对厌食和食欲刺激的反应平行。

此外，他们区分了两种神经机制：用于凝视和无条件刺激的总体活动方案，以及用于凝视和条件刺激的相关选择性方案。这些发现提供了对社会交互作用和效价计算基础的神经机制起源的见解，并可能有助于阐明社会焦虑以及焦虑与受损的社会交互作用并存的机制。

据介绍，在灵长类动物中，其他人的视线方向是一个突出的社交线索，对于交流很重要。尽管凝视可以发出威胁并引发焦虑，但仍不清楚它是否与神经回路共享刺激价值。值得注意的是，凝视不仅具有效价，而且还可以预测社交聚会的结果，可以是消极的也可以是积极的。

附：英文原文

Title: Shared yet dissociable neural codes across eye gaze, valence and expectation

Author: Raviv Pryluk, Yosef Shohat, Anna Morozov, Dafna Friedman, Aryeh H. Taub, Rony Paz

Issue&Volume: 2020-09-23

Abstract: The direction of the eye gaze of others is a prominent social cue in primates and is important for communication1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. Although gaze can signal threat and elicit anxiety6,12,13, it remains unclear whether it shares neural circuitry with stimulus value. Notably, gaze not only has valence, but can also serve as a predictor of the outcome of a social encounter, which can be either negative or positive2,8,12,13. Here we show that the neural codes for gaze and valence overlap in primates and that they involve two different mechanisms: one for the outcome and another for its expectation. Monkeys participated in the human intruder test13,14, in which a human participant had either a direct or averted gaze, interleaved with blocks of aversive and appetitive conditioning. We find that single neurons in the amygdala encode gaze15, whereas neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex encode the social context16, but not gaze. We identify a shared population in the amygdala for which the neural responses to direct and averted gaze parallel the responses to aversive and appetitive stimulus, respectively. Furthermore, we distinguish between two neural mechanisms—an overall-activity scheme that is used for gaze and the unconditioned stimulus, and a correlated-selectivity scheme that is used for gaze and the conditioned stimulus. These findings provide insights into the origins of the neural mechanisms that underlie the computations of both social interactions and valence, and could help to shed light on mechanisms that underlie social anxiety and the comorbidity between anxiety and impaired social interactions.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2740-8

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2740-8