 |
|
Is that song sexy or just so-so?
September 23, 2008Songbird study tracks effects of hormones on neural responses to sounds
Why is your mate's rendition of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" cute and sexy sometimes and so annoying at other times? A songbird study conducted by Emory University sheds new light on this question, showing that a change in hormone levels may alter the way we perceive social cues by altering a system of brain nuclei, common to all vertebrates, called the "social behavior network."
"Social behaviors such as courtship, parenting and aggression depend primarily on two factors: a social signal to trigger the behavior, and a hormonal milieu that facilitates or permits it," says Emory neuroscientist Donna Maney, who led the study. "Our results demonstrate a possible neural mechanism by which hormones may alter the processing of these signals and affect social decision-making."
Maney's research examines how genes, hormones and the environment interact to affect the brain, using songbirds as a model. Her work helps provide an understanding of the basic principles underlying brain structure and function common to many species, including humans.
Maney led a previous study on white-throated sparrows that suggested hormones may modulate the way the auditory system processes courtship signals. The new study (currently online), to be published in the Nov. 10 edition of the Journal of Comparative Neurology, expands on that research, tracking and quantifying the effects of hormones across nine different nodes of the brain's social behavior network.
The research group treated female white-throated sparrows with estrogen, to mimic the levels seen during the breeding season, and compared them with females that had low, non-breeding levels of estrogen. The birds listened to recordings of either male white-throated sparrow song (a courtship signal that should command the attention of breeding females) or synthetic beeps (which should be pretty boring for all the females). The researchers then used a marker of new protein synthesis to map and quantify the activity in the social behavior network that was induced specifically by song.
Across most of the network, song-specific neural responses were higher in the "breeding" females than the "non-breeding" ones. But the effects of estrogen were not identical in every region. "If every node in the network just responded more in the presence of estrogen, then we'd conclude that estrogen acts as an on-off switch," Maney says. "But what we're seeing is more complicated than that. Some activity goes up with estrogen, and some goes down. We are seeing how estrogen changes the big picture as the brain processes social information."
The findings suggest that the perceived meaning of a stimulus may be related to the activity in the entire social behavior network, rather than a single region of the brain. "The same neural mechanism may be operating in humans," Maney says. "In women, preferences for male faces, voices, body odors and behavior change over the course of the menstrual cycle as estrogen levels rise and fall. Our work with these songbirds shows a possible neural basis for those changes."
Emory University
Maney's research examines how genes, hormones and the environment interact to affect the brain, using songbirds as a model. Her work helps provide an understanding of the basic principles underlying brain structure and function common to many species, including humans.
Maney led a previous study on white-throated sparrows that suggested hormones may modulate the way the auditory system processes courtship signals. The new study (currently online), to be published in the Nov. 10 edition of the Journal of Comparative Neurology, expands on that research, tracking and quantifying the effects of hormones across nine different nodes of the brain's social behavior network.
The research group treated female white-throated sparrows with estrogen, to mimic the levels seen during the breeding season, and compared them with females that had low, non-breeding levels of estrogen. The birds listened to recordings of either male white-throated sparrow song (a courtship signal that should command the attention of breeding females) or synthetic beeps (which should be pretty boring for all the females). The researchers then used a marker of new protein synthesis to map and quantify the activity in the social behavior network that was induced specifically by song.
Across most of the network, song-specific neural responses were higher in the "breeding" females than the "non-breeding" ones. But the effects of estrogen were not identical in every region. "If every node in the network just responded more in the presence of estrogen, then we'd conclude that estrogen acts as an on-off switch," Maney says. "But what we're seeing is more complicated than that. Some activity goes up with estrogen, and some goes down. We are seeing how estrogen changes the big picture as the brain processes social information."
The findings suggest that the perceived meaning of a stimulus may be related to the activity in the entire social behavior network, rather than a single region of the brain. "The same neural mechanism may be operating in humans," Maney says. "In women, preferences for male faces, voices, body odors and behavior change over the course of the menstrual cycle as estrogen levels rise and fall. Our work with these songbirds shows a possible neural basis for those changes."
Emory University
More Social Behavior Network Current Events and Social Behavior Network News Articles
|
The vertebrate social behavior network: Evolutionary themes and variations [An article from: Hormones and Behavior] by J.L. Goodson (Author) This digital document is a journal article from Hormones and Behavior, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. Description: Based on a wide variety of data, it is now clear that birds and teleost (bony) fish possess a core ''social behavior network'' within the basal forebrain and midbrain that is homologous to the social behavior network of mammals. The nodes of this network are reciprocally connected, contain receptors for sex steroid hormones, and are involved in multiple forms of social behavior. Other hodological features and neuropeptide distributions are likewise very similar across taxa. This evolutionary conservation... | |
 |
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis (Author), James H. Fowler (Author) Your colleague's husband's sister can make you fat, even if you don't know her. A happy neighbor has more impact on your happiness than a happy spouse. These startling revelations of how much we truly influence one another are revealed in the studies of Drs. Christakis and Fowler, which have repeatedly made front-page news nationwide. In CONNECTED, the authors explain why emotions are contagious, how health behaviors spread, why the rich get richer, even how we find and choose our partners. Intriguing and entertaining, CONNECTED overturns the notion of the individual and provides a revolutionary paradigm-that social networks influence our ideas, emotions, health, relationships, behavior, politics, and much more. It will change the way we think about every aspect of our... |
 |
Psychiatric Challenges for the Primary Care Physician: Social Phonia (NCME Video 702) Also With: Network For Continuing Medical Education (Primary Contributor), Jerrold F. Rosenbaum (Primary Contributor), James G. Jones (Primary Contributor), Jonathan Davidson (Primary Contributor), Nicholas L. Potts (Primary Contributor) In this program, two experts on social phobia present three case studies based on actual patients recreated through the use of actors. The signs and symptoms physicians should recognize in diagnosing social phobia, as defined by the DSM-IV, are presented as well as available therapeutic regimens, both pharmacologic and cognitive behavior therapy. |
 |
Interpersonal Networks in Organizations: Cognition, Personality, Dynamics, and Culture (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences) by Martin Kilduff (Author), David Krackhardt (Author) This book brings a social networks perspective to bear on topics of leadership, decision-making, turnover, organizational crises, organizational culture, and other major organizational behavior topics. It offers a new direction for organizational behavior theory and research by drawing from social network ideas. Across diverse research topics, the authors pursue an integrated focus on social ties both as they are represented in the cognitions of individuals and as they operate as constraints and opportunities in organizational settings. The authors bring their 20 years worth of research experience together to provide a programmatic social network approach to understanding the internal functioning of organizations. By focusing a distinctive research lens on interpersonal networks, they... |
 |
Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities by Vimala Pillari (Author), Moses Newsome (Author) Using a personal writing style, the authors show students why people behave the way they do and prepare them for situations they will encounter on the job and in daily living. The book focuses on the family, group, organization, and community influences on human development, with explicit attention paid to the patterns and consequences of discrimination and oppression. Coverage includes: diverse family lifestyles (two-parent families, single-parent families, gay and lesbian families, ethnic and racial backgrounds, and class differences); various types of group membership (norms, group conformity, group goals, and leadership and power issues); social welfare organizations (goals of organizations, the bureaucratic environment, and communication processes); and concept, function, and... |
|
Social networks and their influence on drinking behaviors: differences related to cognitive impairment in clients receiving alcoholism treatment *.: An ... Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs by Jennifer E. Buckman (Author), Marsha E. Bates (Author), Ron A. Cisler (Author) This digital document is an article from Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2007. The length of the article is 7367 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. From the author: Objective: Mechanisms of behavioral change that support positive addiction treatment outcomes in individuals with co-occurring alcohol-use disorders and cognitive impairment remain largely unknown. This article combines person- and variable-centered approaches to examine the interrelated influence of cognitive impairment and social support on stability of and changes in... | |
 |
The Social Logic Of Politics: Personal Networks As Contexts For Political Behavior by Alan S. Zuckerman (Editor) Using classic theories to explain individuals' political decisions, this volume examines what influences these decisions. Supported by the research of the Columbia school of electoral sociology, this view is contrasted with rational choice theory and the Michigan school of electoral analysis. Written by a range of political scientists, this volume advances theory and method in the study of political behavior and returns the social logic of politics to the heart of political science. |
 |
Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action (Comparative Politics) by Mario Diani (Editor), Doug McAdam (Editor) For the first time in a single volume, leading social movement researchers map the full range of applications of network concepts and tools to their field of inquiry. They illustrate how networks affect individual contributions to collective action in both democratic and non-democratic organizations; how patterns of inter-organizational linkages affect the circulation of resources both within movement milieus and between movement organizations and the political system; how network concepts and techniques may improve our grasp of the relationship between movements and elites, of the configuration of alliance and conflict structures, of the clustering of episodes of contention in protest cycles.Social Movements and Networks casts new light on our understanding of social movements and... |
 |
Mapping Social Networks, Spatial Data, and Hidden Populations (Ethnographer's Toolkit) by Jean J. Schensul (Author), Margaret LeCompte (Author), Robert Trotter (Author), Merrill Singer (Author) Whether it is to understand the networks of individuals, the physical makeup of a household or community, or to develop strategies for finding difficult-to-reach populations such as the homeless or drug-addicted, applied ethnographers increasingly need to understand spatial methods. In this brief volume, the techniques of network analysis, mapping, and finding hidden populations are explained in simple, practical language. The authors describe when and how to use these techniques and offer numerous examples of how the methods have worked in practice. Checklists, extended case studies, definitions, and cross-references aid the reader in understanding this important set of ethnographic tools. |
 |
Adolescent Online Social Communication and Behavior: Relationship Formation on the Internet by Robert Zheng (Editor), Jason Burrow-sanchez (Editor), Clifford Drew (Editor) The use of social media has gained a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media. However, general concerns exist among the public, community, schools, and administration that online social communication may pose more threats than benefits to adolescents. Adolescent Online Social Communication and Behavior: Relationship Formation on the Internet identifies the role and function of shared contact behavior of youth on the Web. With expert international contributions, this publication provides a deep understanding on various issues of adolescent Internet use with an emphasis on diverse aspects of social and cognitive development, communication characteristics, and modes of communication. |
| © 2009 BrightSurf.com |