Mechanisms and Neural Circuits Supporting Social Behaviors

The GRC conference The Neuroscience of Social Behaviors, focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms, neural circuits and neuronal computations that support social behaviors and social interactions. As we have been cruelly reminded during the pandemic, social interactions are an essential part of our lives. However, we still know very little of the underlying neuronal processes that support social behaviors. In addition, patients suffering from psychiatric diseases often experience impaired social cognition and have difficulties forming and maintaining social relationships. Importantly, several of these diseases are also worsened by social conditions such as isolation or bullying, and cases of mental illnesses involving social deficits are reported to be increasing each year. Because social interactions are essential for the survival of most animal species, understanding the biological and circuit mechanisms underlying these behaviors is critical for understanding how social cognition in humans may be impacted by disease.

Social neurosciences utilize a wide-range of animal models, from insects to non-human primates, and so neuroscientists have a large array of animal models and social behaviors at their disposal to investigate the neural basis of social interactions. In addition, social neurosciences are leveraging exciting new advances in cell imaging and computational neuroscience (deep-neural networks for multiple animal tracking, classifiers etc.). We hope this meeting will therefore give researchers the opportunity to hear about and discuss the different animal models, social behaviors and techniques to generate new ideas. In addition, animal models of psychiatric diseases exhibiting deficits in social interactions are extensively used to provide new insights into the causes behind diseases such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or autism spectrum disorder. This meeting will therefore also broach on translational research investigating diseases associated with impaired social interactions. Overall, we aim for this meeting to facilitate exchanges and collaborations between scientists from different fields (neurobiology, ethology, and medicine) investigating the neurobiology of social interactions in health and disease contexts.

Our first conference will cover the “Mechanisms and Neural Circuits Supporting Social Behaviors” with each session broadly focused on a given social behavior (social communication, mechanisms of social recognition, parental behaviors, social hierarchy, social aggression and defensive behaviors, prosocial behaviors), representation of self and others, and animal models of psychiatric disease associated with impaired a social behavior.