Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Strong social connections, or social bonds, have substantial benefits for fitness and survival in many animals, including humans. How these bonds develop, and what sustains them, is not well understood. Communicative behaviours - like vocalizations - are a primary way that animals exchange information, and therefore, must serve a significant role in the social bonding process. Past research indicates that sociality co-evolved with the complexity and frequency of communication. A separate line of research shows that there is overlap between the neural circuits for social cognition and communication in the cortex. Yet, it is unclear how these separate lines of research fit together. My research program lies at the intersection of these perspectives, with the long-term goal to elucidate how communication supports social bonding. Over the next five years, my research team and I will investigate when and why vocalizations promote bonding and how specific neural circuits affect vocal communication between partners. Our research will focus on an emerging rodent model for social bonding, the prairie vole. Prairie voles are one of the few mammals that are socially monogamous; male and female mates form selective preferences for each other, or pair-bonds, and they cooperate to raise young. Adult prairie voles are highly vocal, but the functions and mechanisms of their vocalizations are not yet understood. We will address two main objectives using prairie voles as a study species. Our first objective is to determine how prairie vole vocalizations influence pair-bond formation and maintenance. We will test the hypothesis that vocal communication facilitates social interactions that transition unbonded strangers into bonded partners. We will also test the hypothesis that vocal communication promotes long-term stability of pair-bonds. Experiments to address these hypotheses combine behavioural observations with computational tools to characterize vocalizations and their impact. Our second objective is to identify neural circuits that regulate prairie vole vocal communication during pair-bonding. We will test the hypothesis that the prefrontal cortex enables individuals to produce and perceive vocalizations. Experiments to test this hypothesis combine state-of-the-art systems neuroscience tools to examine brain function. This research program integrates evolutionary, developmental, and mechanistic perspectives to build the foundation for a new biological theory to explain social bonding dynamics. Ultimately, this work will have broad implications for interdisciplinary research on both the causes and consequences of complex behaviour.