Investigation of behavior and cortical network for social causal attribution in primates

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K21042
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Brain biometrics; Basic / Social brain science
• Research Institution: Niigata University
• Principal Investigator: Adachi Yusuke 新潟大学, 医歯学系, 助教 (40625646)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 認知神経科学 / マカクザル

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In daily life we always attribute the causes of personal events to self, other agents, or other entities. Because invasive researches in animals are indispensable to clarify the details of the neural mechanism of social causal attribution, it is necessary to construct a nonverbal behavioral task that is applicable to non-human animals. We constructed a behavior experiment system in which macaque monkeys had to judge what was the cause of good or bad events. It was confirmed that monkeys could adapt to the situation where the causal relationship changed in qualitative or quantitative manners. We also performed functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments in humans with an equivalent task and examined the brain regions related to causal attribution in this task.

Free Research Field

認知神経科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

社会的な原因帰属に偏りが生じることは健常者においてもしばしばあることだが、とくに統合失調症などの精神疾患で出来事の原因帰属に障害が伴うことが知られている。動物に適用可能な社会的原因帰属行動実験系を構築し、またヒトにおいて機能画像法を用いた関連脳領域の検討を行ったことにより、動物において侵襲的手法を用いたさらに詳細な生理学研究により社会的原因帰属行動の神経機構を解明する基盤となり、原因帰属の障害がみられる精神疾患の神経生理学的理解につながることが期待される。