Andrea A. Chiba - US grants

Chiba abstract

An organism's ability to flexibly adapt its behavior based on the learned associations of environmental stimuli can be critical to the survival of that organism. Among other issues, successful adaptation relies on both appropriate modulation of attention and an accurate appraisal or evaluation of the affective significance of environmental stimuli. Two distinct anatomical divisions of the amygdala, the central nucleus and the basolateral complex, are thought to play a role in adaptive behavior under many experimental conditions that depend on associative learning. Numerous subcortical and cortical anatomical projections allow the amygdala access to basic sensory and somatic information, and also position it to affect the output of behavior. The proposed body of work is aimed towards the investigation of the role of the central nucleus and the basolateral complex of the amygdala and their constituent corticopetal/cortical systems in modulating attention and affective evaluation during learning. A combination of behavioral tasks, neural recording (single units) neurochemical manipulations, and lesion techniques will be used to gather data investigating these issues. Once the data are gathered, techniques for alternative analysis of the neural firing properties will be pursued in a collaborative effort with computational modelers.

Additionally, this research program will be used as a vehicle to provide research opportunities for students at multiple academic levels (high school through post-doctoral). A critical component of this approach will include training researchers to do science while providing them with the skills and opportunities to teach others. Ultimately, this will result in a community outreach effort aimed towards providing unique scientific opportunities and information that may serve to draw a more diverse group of young people to the sciences.

Abstract
Humans, rats and other vertebrates, relying on their advanced nervous systems, are far superior at dealing with the uncertainties of the world than are artificial systems. Thus, a machine, whose behavior is guided by a neurobiologically inspired system, might demonstrate the flexible, autonomous behavior normally attributed to biological organisms. Biological organisms have the ability to respond quickly to an ever-changing world. Because this adaptability is so critical for survival, all vertebrates have sub-cortical structures, which comprise the neuromodulatory systems, to handle uncertainty and change in the environment. Attention, which is influenced by neuromodulation, plays a significant role in animal's ability to respond to such changes. Different neuromodulatory systems are thought to play important and distinct roles in attention. A collaborative approach, which compares rodent experiments with robots having simulated nervous systems, will examine these attentional systems. These experiments will lead to a better understanding of how animals cope with uncertainty in the environment, and will lead to the design of a robot capable of flexible and complex behavior. This work has the potential of being paradigm-shifting technology that could find its way in many practical applications.

In an interdisciplinary approach, a robotic system, whose design is based on the vertebrate neuromodulatory system and its effect on attention, will be constructed and tested under similar experimental conditions to the rat, and then in a more practical application. This approach, which combines computational modeling and robotics with rodent behavioral and electrophysiological experiments, will lead to a better understanding of how areas of the brain allocate attentional resources and cause the organism to respond rapidly to essential events and objects. Two of these neuromodulatory systems, the cholinergic and noradrenergic, are thought to play important and distinct roles in attention. Expected uncertainty, the known degree of unreliability of predictive relationships in the environment, drives activity within the cholinergic system. Unexpected uncertainty, large changes in the environment that violate prior expectations, drives activity within the noradrenergic system. These systems modulate activity in brain areas to properly allocate the attention to stimuli in the environment necessary for adequate learning to occur and fluid behavior to be maintained. This knowledge will be used to construct a robust, intelligent robotic system whose capability to adapt to change, and behave effectively in a noisy, complex environment will rival that of a biological system.

It is commonly accepted that there is a crisis in education in the US. There are too many struggling learners, too many students who cannot read or do basic arithmetic, let alone advanced mathematics. What is not commonly accepted is what to do about this crisis. The researchers at the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC) believe that part of the current crisis in education is the lack of scientific understanding of how the brain learns, and the lack of translation of this scientific understanding to the classroom. An essential, yet understudied, component of learning that could have a strong impact on education is the role of time and timing in learning. TDLC brought together an interdisciplinary team of over 40 investigators from 16 different research institutions in order to focus research energy on this goal. TDLC's purpose is to achieve an integrated understanding of the role of time and timing in learning, across multiple time and spatial scales, brain systems, and social systems, to 1) create a new science of the temporal dynamics of learning; 2) to use this understanding to transform educational practice; and 3) to create a new collaborative research structure, the network of research networks, to transform the practice of science.

Why study timing? Timing is critical for learning at every level, from learning the precise temporal patterns of speech sounds, to learning when to give feedback in the classroom, to the optimal frequency and timing of studying new material. Moreover, a decade of neuroscience research demonstrates that the intrinsic temporal dynamics of the brain itself also reinforce and constrain learning. For example, work at TDLC has shown that measurements of the brain waves of a toddler-the temporal dynamics of thought - can predict how well that child will perform at language tasks years later. This provides the possibility that early intervention could overcome these difficulties, demonstrating the usefulness of studying temporal dynamics. A research program of this size and scope is clearly only possible through the Center Funding model, in order to provide resources at the scale necessary to coordinate the large team of researchers. The work is organized by dividing the personnel into four research networks, where researchers from multiple disciplines are interested in common questions, and who synchronize their research around experiments that can be carried out in humans, animals, and computational models, allowing unprecedented convergence of techniques on a single question.

ABSTRACT
This international venture aims to coordinate the US Science of Learning Center scientists with those from the Australian Science of Learning Centre through an exciting two day workshop and extended visits to the Australian laboratories for the purpose of planning collaborations and exchanging information. The two day workshop will bring together scientists, policy makers, and government officials for the purpose of introducing the scientific goals and progress from the Science of Learning communities and engaging in a rigorous day of scientific talks and discussions aimed towards gaining interdisciplinary perspectives on the role of attention in learning and formulating research topics designed to move this science into the educational setting. Finally, US trainees and scientists will spend extended time furthering their discussions and plans with Australian scientists through laboratory visits, meetings over data, and extended information exchange on topics relevant to their specific lines of work. Hence the intellectual merit of this activity rests in the exchange of ideas between the US scientists and the Australian scientists, focused on particular issues in the Science of Learning. Cyberinfrastructure will be developed to support the ongoing exchange of information and sharing of data from this workshop. The Australian Science of Learning Centre has graciously offered to incorporate the US community in their existing symposium on Attention and Learning, in addition to providing all facilities and organizational services. The broader impacts of this workshop will be in developing synergies between the scientists in the two countries as well as within the Science of Learning Centers itself. The workshop will serve as a foundation for developing an International Science of Learning Community. Gaining cross-cultural perspectives will enrich our science and be excellent an excellent experience for our trainees. A major challenge that faces every nation is how to provide effective and high quality education. This workshop will contribute to solving this problem and is likely to have an impact on the future of the global workforce and the global nature of science in general. The grass-root efforts of international collaborations can be transformational both to the education of the centers' trainees and to the future quality of the education this country provides children. These grass-root efforts are essential in this era of global science.

The social world exerts a powerful influence on our behavior and our brains. Yet, much of our knowledge regarding the function of neurons in the brain is based on neural recordings from animals or humans who are isolated from their social counterparts. Thus, there exists a knowledge gap that is largely due to the lack of recording and behavioral tools for doing experiments in the social realm that still allow proper experimental control. Dr. Andrea Chiba and colleagues aim to fill this gap by developing the following: 1) light, wireless, flexible recording sensors that can provide brain and body signals in a non-intrusive manner; 2) a robot with a synthetic, biologically inspired brain that can act as a socially relevant entity; and 3) a set of novel experiments to interrogate the function of brain circuits and their relationship to other biological signals during social interactions and decisions. The ability to record and integrate signals from the brain and body during complex social decisions will provide a research platform for studying and reconstructing brain signals to understand how the brain represents the social world. The new technology can eventually be scaled for use with humans, providing a means to better understand the neural basis of goal-directed social actions beyond what is currently feasible.

In addition to its potential for advancing the understudied field of social neuroscience, the development of the tools will provide a cutting-edge platform to train the next generation of diverse interdisciplinary scientists. The research team is committed to public outreach and plans are in place for: 1) public talks, including to K-12 and undergraduate audiences; 2) dissemination of information through appropriate media outlets; and 3) launching a virtual robot competition to engage promising young scholars of diverse backgrounds in scientific careers, by highlighting exciting interdisciplinary research that links the study of brain and behavior with engineering approaches.

Specifically, 3 major technologies will be developed and conjoined to comprise a suite of neuroscientific tools that include: 1) Flexible, stretchable, wireless sensors for detecting autonomic responses such as respiration rate and heart rate, both of which are modulated by social encounters; 2) integration of the autonomic signals with high-density neurophysiological wireless recording systems, as no such system exists currently. Approximations of these systems result in heavy instrumentation that disrupts ordinary movement and social behavior, so the second generation of this technology would include integration with injectable cellular scale opto-electronic devices; and 3) A synthetic life form (robot) to be further developed as a neuroscience research tool and a test bed for integration of theoretical principles gained from experimental data of the complex dynamics of neural systems. Ultimately, the neurally inspired architecture of the robot will, in turn, be expanded to include and synthesize the formal theoretical properties of neural systems essential to social function. The basic neuroscientific questions that can be addressed with these tools are boundless.

The global acceleration in technological innovation and transformation is incidentally leading to a scientific culture in which technology is often designed and launched without providing ethical guidelines for its use. Thus, the mere pace of technology mandates an urgent need for establishing ethical guidelines as part of the natural course of science. Ultimately, a sustainable landscape of innovation will include a culture of partnership between the scientific community and ethicists, allowing capitalization on the benefits of discovery while mitigating the liabilities to society. This movement must be driven as a team effort at the outset. Thus, a primary purpose of this proposal is to formulate a cross-disciplinary team of scientists and ethicists to consider the ethical use of a select set of emerging technologies for application to the science of learning, education, rehabilitation, medicine, and augmented humans.

At the outset, a team of engineers, cognitive scientists, psychologists and educators will work alongside ethicists with expertise in the ethics of virtual reality, neurorehabilitation, robotics, wearable sensors, and augmented humans through a workshop-style forum, set at the University of Queensland, Australia, in order to forge a path for establishing ethical guidelines as part of the scientific process. A virtual organization will be formed to sustain these efforts and to create a secure forum for continual interaction between scientists and relevant ethicists and policy makers. The international component of this grant is absolutely essential not only to the training of a diversity of students who will be trained to lead sustainable science in the future, but also to balance the venture as an international problem worthy of coordination and international collaboration at the outset. Both the international component and the virtual forum also establish the fact that ethical guidelines and policy need to be an inherent component of STEM education. Educational activities for graduate students are an inherent component of each goal of the grant and programs for recruitment and inclusion of under-represented students are embedded in the plan. Additional STEM education materials, and established routes for broader dissemination to under-represented students, will be produced as a byproduct of the high level scientific program. The activities will conclude with a fully articulated process for establishing ethical guidelines as an integral part of technology development.

Project Summary: This project represents an interdisciplinary approach to modeling the neural and physiological dynamics of prosocial behavior. Advances in wireless electronics, wearable sensors, computing power, machine learning, signal processing, robotics, information theory, and neuromorphic engineering combined with innovative behavioral design and social neuroanatomical theory make possible the launch of a novel and integrative effort to model the dynamics underlying prosociality. Leveraging the expertise of our highly collaborative cross-functional team we aim to: (1) characterize the physiological (brain/autonomic) signatures of committing a prosocial act; (2) characterize the physiological signatures of experiencing/receiving a prosocial act; (3) quantify the extent to which the physiological dynamics of the recipient, while experiencing a stressful behavioral epoch, predict their social decisions as the actor; and (4) develop the iRat as an ?ethnodroid?, designed to elicit social behaviors through its own behavior while acting as a videographer in close proximity to the rats. Success in achieving all or even a subset of the target capabilities will demonstrate the power of this innovative approach in a virtually limitless array of medical applications. Results of the proposed project will serve as a game-changing springboard for the development of models of coordination and regulation of the brain and body towards efficacious sociality. The work will provide a foundation for future development of techniques to modulate the system for the purpose of restoring balance, regulation, and prosociality towards improved mental and physical health, in addition to interventions aimed towards preventative health. A byproduct of the work will involve technological advances for measuring physiological signals in a relatively unobtrusive fashion and in the development of contextual robotic tools for assessing social behavior. Such advancements will spur additional research programs. Nationally and Internationally, the development and display of prosocial behavior has been associated with more functional family relationships, with stronger mental health, with higher success in school, with greater physical health, and with better empathic responding. Thus, engaging in the proposed research and understanding the predictive dynamics of the system can allow the development of quantitative metrics for diagnosis, treatment and understanding of stress-related mental health disorders ? that modulate or are modulated by ? social dynamics.

A primary purpose of this workshop proposal is to leverage the strengths of global scientific communities with substantial expertise in human, animal, neuromorphic, and machine learning. It seeks to leverage NSF investments in Science of Learning to develop a network of US and international researchers who are committed to interdisciplinary and integrative research in the study of learning and its implications for societal challenges in education, technology innovation and workforce preparation. The workshop will purposefully mobilize and engage US and international partners to identify shared interests and needs (expertise, infrastructure/organization) that can create new research opportunities with meaningful international experiences for students and faculty. Funds will be used for planning and coordination activities to culminate in a consensus building workshop with the following goals: 1) Identify research priorities (and/or associated societal challenges) for which networks of scientists are poised to work together; 2) identify and build a community infrastructure that allows teams to quickly re-configure in response to research and societal challenges/opportunities; 3) identify ways to address learning in the growing divide between societies with and without science and technology resources, while maintaining important cultural features; and 4) Co-convene a International Science of Learning Summit meeting in tandem with the Science of Learning Awardees meeting to identify priorities in training needs and knowledge domains for science of learning.

The successful fostering of a global community in the science of learning enables access to a large expertise base, and accelerated sharing and dissemination of knowledge across a broad spectrum of disciplines. It builds capacity of interdisciplinary groups to collaborate, and strengthens and builds new partnerships for US researchers to work with international partners. This in turn, enables greater fluidity and cooperation for student exchange and training in international laboratories

Classroom learning is impacted by a child's ability to appropriately self-regulate and adjust their state for the task at hand. Self-regulation relies on an individual's ability to fluidly maintain balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The primary nerve involved in signaling between systems is the vagus nerve. The efficacy of the vagus nerve, called "vagal tone" has been associated with the ability to maintain appropriate balance between systems. Children who grow up in compromised circumstances, including maternal malnutrition or stress and early trauma or malnutrition often have poor vagal tone at the outset, placing them at a biological disadvantage when they enter the classroom setting. A multi-disciplinary team will converge on design and practices for creating technology and algorithms to better assess vagal tone and the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Best practices for conducting continuous collection of simultaneous behavioral and physiological data from multiple children in a natural classroom setting will be addressed as will analysis of the resultant data from both dynamical systems and information theory perspectives. This undertaking should reveal the association of vagal regulation of the nervous system and a child's ability to regulate their cognitive state for classroom learning in a natural social setting. The creation of cyberinfrastructure and tools for collaboration and creation will support the project, training of future scientists, and the scalability of the project. The discovery of clear patterns of data will allow future efforts to address equity in learning by devising ways to facilitate development of vagal tone and/or the ability to regulate the balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system in those for whom it is compromised at the outset. Data analytics might also reveal recommendations for optimizing the classroom setting to facilitate early self-regulation and learning. Partnerships will allow the broader dissemination of the research findings for inclusion in teacher education.

From a biological perspective, the ability to self-regulate is dealt with through the balance of the brain and bodily systems by effectively balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The primary perpetrator responsible for maintaining this balance is thought to be the vagus nerve, and its efficacy can be approximated through a variety of heart rate and respiration rate comparisons often referred to as vagal tone. Compromised maternal environment, poor nutrition, or early trauma are amongst the conditions that can lead to early developmental differences in vagal tone, posing the question of equity as it relates to the development of regulatory function. This multidisciplinary team led by Dr. Chiba will investigate the role of vagal tone in classroom self-regulation and learning, through convergent scientific approaches that includes development and augmentation of nano-sensor technology to achieve high quality, unobtrusive measurements of vagal tone, and new algorithms for measurement during testing and learning experiences in the classroom. The sensor network will be supported by the development of classroom mapping and cyberinfrastructure for large-scale, real-time data collection and predictive modeling. To scaffold the gap between laboratory hypotheses and contextually-based evidence, an embedded network of sensors for studying physiology as it relates to self-regulatory skills (e.g., executive functions) in the classroom will be developed. Analytics to measure vagal tone across time will enable understanding of the variability in vagal tone and how it relates to concurrent measures of classroom self-regulation. Once conclusions from resultant data are considered to be scientifically reliable, information will be disseminated in a form that is useful for educators. To support the interdisciplinary efforts, this project also includes development of cyberinfrastructure to support convergence research.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.