# Cycles of Social Contingency: Pivotal Transitions that Shape Brain-Behavior Development in Monkeys

> **NIH NIH P50** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $401,131

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY 
In humans, recent discoveries point to the importance of early-emerging and highly-conserved, quantitative 
mediating social phenotypes to advance understanding of the brain-behavior pathogenesis of Autism Spectrum 
Disorders (ASD). Thus, intact early, subcortically-guided, reflexive visual engagement performance is followed 
by a failed transition to cortically-guided, voluntary or reward-driven transition in early infancy. Our NHP brain- 
behavior studies suggest that 4-8 weeks of age (≈ 2-9 months for human infants) represents a critical period for 
the refinement of social skills, paralleled by fine-tuning of neural connections in social visual engagement 
pathways. Here, we propose a new generation of NHP studies that capitalizes on a remarkable convergence of 
findings yielded by current Emory ACE 2012 and related work and will include behavioral and neural measures 
similar to those used for human projects (P-I and P-III). 15 newborn male monkeys (Macaca mulatta) living with 
their mothers in large, socially complex, groups at the YNPRC Field Station will be used to: (a) characterize 
social visual engagement and neuromotor development (Aim 1); (b) trace development of early cycles of social 
contingency, adding a strong focus on mother-infant reciprocal behaviors given the apparent criticality of social 
contingency in moving social-communication development forward and identify early social predictors of later 
social competency (Aim 2); and (c) map the unfolding maturation of neural networks mediating changes in 
perception and attention to social stimuli, in mother-infant contingency cycles, and in the development of social 
competency, using longitudinal, non-invasive neuroimaging methods, and identifying early neural predictors of 
later social behavior outcomes (Aim 3). Data analyses will include new mathematical tools for optimal non- 
uniform sampling, developmental profiling, and inference of statistical causality to quantify the unfolding of social 
engagement between infant-mother, infant-peer, and infant-other adults (DMAC). This will allow us to (a) obtain 
developmental curves for each animal and detect potential outlier cases for follow up studies, (b) test temporal 
causality to address critical questions: Can early neurobehavioral measures in infancy predict social competency 
and detect abnormal social behaviors later in the juvenile period? Are the neurodevelopmental changes driving 
the behavioral changes, or vice-versa? The data will yield a critically needed NHP model of early social 
development for ASD that we will be used to (a) assess how genetic variations as well as molecular and/or 
experimental manipulations of social neural networks alter social development, and (b) validate efficacy of 
potential therapeutic treatments for attenuating social deficits in ASD.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10227975
- **Project number:** 5P50MH100029-10
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** JOCELYNE H BACHEVALIER
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $401,131
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2012-09-04 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10227975

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10227975, Cycles of Social Contingency: Pivotal Transitions that Shape Brain-Behavior Development in Monkeys (5P50MH100029-10). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10227975. Licensed CC0.

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