Hypothalamus, Neuropeptides and Socioemotional Behavior
A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (12 May 2022) | Viewed by 20500
Special Issue Editor
Interests: neurobiology; neurophysiology; neuroimaging; medical neurosciences; neurobehavioral manifestations
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
There is longstanding evidence of dysfunctions of socioemotional behavior in animals and humans after hypothalamic damage. Furthermore, hypothalamic peptides such as oxytocin and arginine-vasopressin have recently attracted great interest for their implications in treatment of patients with socioemotional disorders, as in the case of autism spectrum disorders. For instance, a large number of controlled trials demonstrated that exogenous oxytocin or arginine-vasopressin administration can mitigate social behavior impairment in ASD. However, despite the major role of hypothalamus for the synthesis and release of oxytocin and vasopressin, and the extensively documented hypothalamic role in supporting and regulating affiliative and socioemotional responses in animals and humans, our understanding of the anatomical and functional properties of the hypothalamic nuclei in relation to typical and atypical socioemotional behavior remains rather limited. Recently, extraordinary progresses in MRI techniques indicate the feasibility of high-resolution structural and functional imaging of the human hypothalamus, and thus opening the way to neuroimaging investigations aiming to elucidate the role of this region in multiple facets of socioemotional behavior. The main scope of this Special Issue is thus expanding our understanding of the relationship between the hypothalamic system, its synthetized peptides and socioemotional behavior. The collected articles are expected to help to clarify, for instance, which and how specific anatomical and functional subdivisions of the hypothalamus mediate typical and atypical socioemotional responses, the interactions between the hypothalamus and other cortical and subcortical regions such as amygdala and thalamus, how the modulation of hypothalamic activity reflects dynamic changes of neuropeptides concentration at peripheral and central level, as well as the involvement of specific hypothalamic neuropeptides neural pathways, local release patterns, and receptors distribution in socioemotional responses. This Special Issue calls for original neuroimaging, behavioral and neurobiological studies, as well as meta-analyses and reviews addressing these and other related research questions, so as to deepen and advance the comprehension of the mechanisms through which the hypothalamus shape socioemotional behavior.
Dr. Andrea Caria
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- hypothalamus
- neuropeptides
- neuroimaging
- oxytocin
- vasopressin
- emotion regulation
- social cognition
- social interaction
- affiliative behavior
- socioemotional disorders