Despite the widespread nature of social deficits in patients with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and the foundational importance of adequate social function for therapies (which often directly depend upon group and other interpersonal interactions), the behavioral and neural basis of social impairments in AUDs remains understudied. A significant challenge for understanding such impairments is to link high-level theories of social behavior and cognition with the computations performed by brain circuits. Specifically, how does the brain translate social perception into social valuation, and how does such valuation influence social actions? We propose to leverage recent developments in economic theory and cognitive neuroscience to bridge this divide using a computational, model-based approach. In this proposal, we hypothesize that social impairments in subjects with alcohol use disorders are manifest in the perception of potential social partners and the value consequently assigned to them, impacting the actions that result. By evaluating well-established economic games, we will quantify how subjects with AUDs divide rewards between themselves and anonymous partners in different social contexts. We will manipulate both incentives related to how subjects divide monetary resources between themselves and various social partners, as well as the characteristics of the partners themselves by employing validated quantitative measures of social perception. To unravel the neural mechanisms supporting the above choices, we will use functional MRI to assess brain regions whose activity we hypothesize will vary parametrically with monetary decisions. We thus seek to broaden our understanding of the computations and circuits underlying social behavior. Moreover, we believe that a model-based understanding of these behaviors and neural circuits may someday guide more robust and quantitative assessments of social function in patients with alcohol use disorders, with possible implications for both clinical evaluation and treatment.
Developing a quantitative understanding of the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying human social valuation has important diagnostic and therapeutic ramifications. In this proposal we combine quantitative social measures, computational models, and functional neuroimaging to define the behavioral and neural mechanisms of social valuation in subjects with alcohol use disorders in order to begin to understand the nature of related social impairments.
