Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
Department of Biology, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 04011, USA.
Horm Behav. 2020 Jul;123:104523. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.04.010. Epub 2019 May 1.
Exhibiting behavioral plasticity in order to mount appropriate responses to dynamic and novel social environments is crucial to the survival of all animals. Thus, how animals regulate flexibility in the timing, duration, and intensity of specific behaviors is of great interest to biologists. In this review, we discuss how animals rapidly respond to social challenges, with a particular focus on aggression. We utilize a conceptual framework to understand the neural mechanisms of aggression that is grounded in Wingfield and colleagues' Challenge Hypothesis, which has profoundly influenced how scientists think about aggression and the mechanisms that allow animals to exhibit flexible responses to social instability. Because aggressive behavior is rooted in social interactions, we propose that mechanisms modulating prosocial behavior may be intricately tied to mechanisms of aggression. Therefore, in order to better understand how aggressive behavior is mediated, we draw on perspectives from social neuroscience and discuss how social context, species-typical behavioral phenotype, and neural systems commonly studied in relation to prosocial behavior (i.e., neuropeptides) contribute to organizing rapid responses to social challenges. Because complex behaviors are not the result of one mechanism or a single neural system, we consider how multiple neural systems important for prosocial and aggressive behavior (i.e., neuropeptides and neurosteroids) interact in the brain to produce behavior in a rapid, context-appropriate manner. Applying a systems neuroscience perspective and seeking to understand how multiple systems functionally integrate to rapidly modulate behavior holds great promise for expanding our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying social behavioral plasticity.
为了对动态和新颖的社会环境做出适当的反应，表现出行为可塑性对于所有动物的生存都是至关重要的。因此，动物如何调节特定行为的时间、持续时间和强度的灵活性是生物学家非常感兴趣的问题。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了动物如何快速应对社会挑战，特别是攻击性。我们利用一个概念框架来理解攻击性的神经机制，该框架基于 Wingfield 及其同事的挑战假说，这一假说深刻地影响了科学家对攻击性的思考以及允许动物对社会不稳定做出灵活反应的机制。由于攻击性行为根植于社会互动，我们提出调节亲社会行为的机制可能与攻击性机制密切相关。因此，为了更好地理解攻击性行为是如何被调节的，我们借鉴了社会神经科学的观点，并讨论了社会环境、物种典型的行为表型以及通常与亲社会行为相关的神经系统（即神经肽）如何有助于组织对社会挑战的快速反应。由于复杂的行为不是一个机制或单个神经系统的结果，我们考虑了对亲社会和攻击性行为很重要的多个神经系统（即神经肽和神经甾体）如何在大脑中相互作用，以快速、适应环境的方式产生行为。应用系统神经科学的观点，并寻求理解多个系统如何以功能整合的方式快速调节行为，这为扩展我们对社会行为可塑性的机制的理解提供了很大的希望。
