# Neural Circuit Dissection of Prefrontal Cortex Projections in Social Dominance Behavior

> **NIH NIH F32** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $65,310

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Social interactions, reciprocal interactions between two or more individuals, are critical to the physical
and emotional health of a wide variety of species. Perturbations in social functioning, a hallmark symptom of
many psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, can profoundly impair
an individual's ability to sustain healthy social relations. However, while disruption in social behavior can arise
as a symptom of such disorders, negative social experiences, such as exposure to antagonistic or dominant
social agents, can also support the development and maintenance of psychiatric disorders, such as depression
and anxiety. Furthermore, expression of dominance behavior during social interactions is strongly linked to
resilience to psychiatric disorders in both rodents and humans—individuals who assert dominance are more
resilient to depressive-like symptoms, while individuals who display subordinate behaviors are more vulnerable
to the debilitating effects of stress. Despite growing evidence of the role that social dominance plays in the
etiology of psychiatric disorders, our current understanding of the neural circuit mechanisms that promote
dominant and subordinate behaviors remains remarkably weak. Published work from our lab and others has
identified the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) as a critical node for the expression of dominance
behaviors in both rodents and humans. However, how neural computations in the dmPFC that orchestrate social
dominance decisions are relayed to subcortical limbic regions has never been explored. The experiments
described in this proposal will fill a critical gap in our understanding of neural mechanisms for dominance
behavior by performing detailed neural circuit dissection strategies to anatomically map, physiologically observe,
computationally model, and functionally manipulate individual descending projections of the dmPFC during social
dominance behaviors. Specifically, the outlined proposal will 1) utilize in vivo optogenetics to bidirectionally
manipulate dmPFC projections during social dominance behaviors and 2) utilize in vivo freely moving calcium
imaging to optically record projection-defined dmFPC populations during dominance decisions. The proposed
study will reveal how discrete, anatomically-defined pathways descending from the dmPFC are engaged during
social dominance. These results will set the foundation for a more incisive analysis of how dmPFC circuits shape
social function in both health and disease.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10067385
- **Project number:** 1F32MH123049-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Tara Raam
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $65,310
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-03-01 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10067385

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10067385, Neural Circuit Dissection of Prefrontal Cortex Projections in Social Dominance Behavior (1F32MH123049-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10067385. Licensed CC0.

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