On August 24, 2023, Dr. Ying Li from the Chinese Institute for Brain Research (Beijing) had their Key Program "Understanding the neural basis of adaptive social behaviors" approved by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. 

    The program aims to study the neural mechanisms that generate adaptive social behaviors, which are crucial for individual adaptation to the environment and the continuation of populations. Li Ying's team will use deep learning assisted 3D video analysis and unsupervised methods to compare the free social behavior phenotypes between normal and diseased rats of different ages and genders. They also aim to improve various technologies to record neural activities of multiple animals simultaneously during free social interactions and investigate the coding characteristics of inter-individual neural synchronization during free interactions. The techniques developed in this program could be used to evaluate Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and provide guidance for developing intervention methods to treat specific social disorders.