Our intricate social brain is implicated in a range of brain disorders, where social dysfunction emerges as a common neuropsychiatric feature cutting across diagnostic boundaries in anxiety disorders, major depressive disorders, Alzheimer's disease and Schizophrenia. Understanding the underlying neurocircuitry mechanisms responsible for social dysfunction and exploring avenues for its restoration will present a transformative and transdiagnostic approach to overcoming therapeutic challenges in these disorders. Based on our earlier clinical and preclinical findings from the PRISM funded EU project, we have shown that the brain's default mode network (DMN) plays a crucial role in social functioning and is implicated in various neuropsychiatric conditions, including Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. This is highly supported by other studies showing that the DMN emerges as neurobiological system involved in shaping our complex social phenotype.
To further our mechanistic understanding of this transdiagnostic symptom, we propose that the DMN integrates diverse social processes, and that disruptions in brain communication at regional and network levels (e.g., the salience network (SN) and the frontal parietal network (FPN)) due to disease hinder the seamless integration of these social functionalities. Consequently, this leads to an altered balance between self-referential and attentional processes, along with a compromised ability to adapt to social contexts and anticipate future social interactions. To test this hypothesis, we will test for causality of the pathophysiological link between dysregulation of the specific DMN brain network nodes, social information processing, and components of social functioning in mice.
Research environment Research will be mainly performed in the Neurobiology group at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), which comprises several other strong, internationally recognized research groups in the field of evolutionary biology and behavioral neuroscience. In addition, this project is based on a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, Biberach (Germany), allowing for active collaborations with an excellent industrial partner organization.
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