Federal Grant Award Summary

This $546,335 Project Grant was awarded on May 6, 2026, by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) under the Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders program (CFDA 93.853) to the Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University. The award supports a three-year research initiative (concluding April 30, 2029) investigating how the brain arbitrates between social engagement and physiological needs through the prefrontal-amygdala circuit. The research deliverables include quantitative models of decision-making rules governing social-foraging trade-offs in mice and a causal mapping of the underlying neural computations using closed-loop, computation-contingent optogenetics, with the objective of establishing an integrated framework unifying ecological theory, computational modeling, and circuit-level mechanisms of adaptive social decision-making.

The project addresses a fundamental gap in neuroscience by examining how interconnected prefrontal and amygdalar circuits enable moment-to-moment decisions when animals face trade-offs between remaining with social partners and seeking resources to satisfy immediate physiological needs. Through a naturalistic social-foraging paradigm utilizing mice, the research will employ optogenetic manipulation and behavioral modeling to reveal how hierarchical circuit organization maps onto hierarchically structured social-foraging dynamics, contributing to the broader NINDS mission of reducing the burden of neurological disease through fundamental knowledge of brain and nervous system function.