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Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience

Translational research in behavioral neuroscience seeks causes and remedies for human mental health problems in animals, following leads imposed by clinical research in psychiatry. This endeavor faces several problems because scientists must read and interpret animal movements to represent human per...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Lipp, Hans-Peter, Wolfer, David P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9623569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36330050
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.958067
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author Lipp, Hans-Peter
Wolfer, David P.
author_facet Lipp, Hans-Peter
Wolfer, David P.
author_sort Lipp, Hans-Peter
collection PubMed
description Translational research in behavioral neuroscience seeks causes and remedies for human mental health problems in animals, following leads imposed by clinical research in psychiatry. This endeavor faces several problems because scientists must read and interpret animal movements to represent human perceptions, mood, and memory processes. Yet, it is still not known how mammalian brains bundle all these processes into a highly compressed motor output in the brain stem and spinal cord, but without that knowledge, translational research remains aimless. Based on some four decades of experience in the field, the article identifies sources of interpretation problems and illustrates typical translational pitfalls. (1) The sensory world of mice is different. Smell, hearing, and tactile whisker sensations dominate in rodents, while visual input is comparatively small. In humans, the relations are reversed. (2) Mouse and human brains are equated inappropriately: the association cortex makes up a large portion of the human neocortex, while it is relatively small in rodents. The predominant associative cortex in rodents is the hippocampus itself, orchestrating chiefly inputs from secondary sensorimotor areas and generating species-typical motor patterns that are not easily reconciled with putative human hippocampal functions. (3) Translational interpretation of studies of memory or emotionality often neglects the ecology of mice, an extremely small species surviving by freezing or flight reactions that do not need much cognitive processing. (4) Further misinterpretations arise from confounding neuronal properties with system properties, and from rigid mechanistic thinking unaware that many experimentally induced changes in the brain do partially reflect unpredictable compensatory plasticity. (5) Based on observing hippocampal lesion effects in mice indoors and outdoors, the article offers a simplistic general model of hippocampal functions in relation to hypothalamic input and output, placing hypothalamus and the supraspinal motor system at the top of a cerebral hierarchy. (6) Many translational problems could be avoided by inclusion of simple species-typical behaviors as end-points comparable to human cognitive or executive processing, and to rely more on artificial intelligence for recognizing patterns not classifiable by traditional psychological concepts.
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spelling pubmed-96235692022-11-02 Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience Lipp, Hans-Peter Wolfer, David P. Front Behav Neurosci Behavioral Neuroscience Translational research in behavioral neuroscience seeks causes and remedies for human mental health problems in animals, following leads imposed by clinical research in psychiatry. This endeavor faces several problems because scientists must read and interpret animal movements to represent human perceptions, mood, and memory processes. Yet, it is still not known how mammalian brains bundle all these processes into a highly compressed motor output in the brain stem and spinal cord, but without that knowledge, translational research remains aimless. Based on some four decades of experience in the field, the article identifies sources of interpretation problems and illustrates typical translational pitfalls. (1) The sensory world of mice is different. Smell, hearing, and tactile whisker sensations dominate in rodents, while visual input is comparatively small. In humans, the relations are reversed. (2) Mouse and human brains are equated inappropriately: the association cortex makes up a large portion of the human neocortex, while it is relatively small in rodents. The predominant associative cortex in rodents is the hippocampus itself, orchestrating chiefly inputs from secondary sensorimotor areas and generating species-typical motor patterns that are not easily reconciled with putative human hippocampal functions. (3) Translational interpretation of studies of memory or emotionality often neglects the ecology of mice, an extremely small species surviving by freezing or flight reactions that do not need much cognitive processing. (4) Further misinterpretations arise from confounding neuronal properties with system properties, and from rigid mechanistic thinking unaware that many experimentally induced changes in the brain do partially reflect unpredictable compensatory plasticity. (5) Based on observing hippocampal lesion effects in mice indoors and outdoors, the article offers a simplistic general model of hippocampal functions in relation to hypothalamic input and output, placing hypothalamus and the supraspinal motor system at the top of a cerebral hierarchy. (6) Many translational problems could be avoided by inclusion of simple species-typical behaviors as end-points comparable to human cognitive or executive processing, and to rely more on artificial intelligence for recognizing patterns not classifiable by traditional psychological concepts. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9623569/ /pubmed/36330050 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.958067 Text en Copyright © 2022 Lipp and Wolfer. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Behavioral Neuroscience
Lipp, Hans-Peter
Wolfer, David P.
Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience
title Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience
title_full Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience
title_fullStr Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience
title_full_unstemmed Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience
title_short Behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? Problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience
title_sort behavior is movement only but how to interpret it? problems and pitfalls in translational neuroscience—a 40-year experience
topic Behavioral Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9623569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36330050
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.958067
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