Experience modulates vicarious freezing in rats: a model for empathy.
Experience modulates vicarious freezing in rats: a model for empathy.
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0021855
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发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Keysers C
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Atsak P;Orre M;Bakker P;Cerliani L;Roozendaal B;Gazzola V;Moita M;Keysers C
近年来，对情绪共情的神经基础的研究引起了人们的极大兴趣，但大多采用人类神经成像技术。一个更简单的动物模型将为系统的单细胞记录和对涉及同理心的大脑区域的侵入性操作铺平道路。最近的证据表明啮齿动物存在移情。在这项研究中，我们描述了一个潜在的模型，在雌性大鼠的同情心，我们研究了两只大鼠之间的相互作用：一个证人观察一个演示者经历了一系列的电击脚。通过比较有或没有以前的脚震经验的证人的反应，我们研究的作用，以前的经验作为移情的调制器。我们发现，证人以前经历过脚震，但不是天真的，显示替代冻结行为后，目睹了笼友经历脚震。引人注目的是，示威者的行为反过来又受到目击者行为的影响：如果目击者的行为更僵硬，示威者在电击后会更僵硬。先前的实验表明，大鼠在接受脚电击时会发出超声波发声（USVs）。因此，我们检查了USV在我们的范式中触发替代冻结的作用。我们发现，有经验的示威者对排放更多的USV比天真的示威者对，但USV的数量与示威者冻结，而不是在证人。此外，回放的USV，记录从无证示威者对在移情测试中，并没有引起替代冻结行为的经验丰富的证人。因此，我们的研究结果证实，替代冻结可以在大鼠中触发，而且它可以通过先前的经验进行调节。此外，我们的研究结果表明，替代冻结不是由USV本身触发的，它会影响到引起证人替代冻结的示威者的行为，引入了一个范式来研究移情作为一个社会循环。
The study of the neural basis of emotional empathy has received a surge of interest in recent years but mostly employing human neuroimaging. A simpler animal model would pave the way for systematic single cell recordings and invasive manipulations of the brain regions implicated in empathy. Recent evidence has been put forward for the existence of empathy in rodents. In this study, we describe a potential model of empathy in female rats, in which we studied interactions between two rats: a witness observes a demonstrator experiencing a series of footshocks. By comparing the reaction of witnesses with or without previous footshock experience, we examine the role of prior experience as a modulator of empathy. We show that witnesses having previously experienced footshocks, but not naïve ones, display vicarious freezing behavior upon witnessing a cage-mate experiencing footshocks. Strikingly, the demonstrator's behavior was in turn modulated by the behavior of the witness: demonstrators froze more following footshocks if their witness froze more. Previous experiments have shown that rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) when receiving footshocks. Thus, the role of USV in triggering vicarious freezing in our paradigm is examined. We found that experienced witness-demonstrator pairs emitted more USVs than naïve witness-demonstrator pairs, but the number of USVs was correlated with freezing in demonstrators, not in witnesses. Furthermore, playing back the USVs, recorded from witness-demonstrator pairs during the empathy test, did not induce vicarious freezing behavior in experienced witnesses. Thus, our findings confirm that vicarious freezing can be triggered in rats, and moreover it can be modulated by prior experience. Additionally, our result suggests that vicarious freezing is not triggered by USVs per se and it influences back onto the behavior of the demonstrator that had elicited the vicarious freezing in witnesses, introducing a paradigm to study empathy as a social loop.
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影响因子：
2.7
作者：
Allen, Timothy Alexander;Furtak, Sharon Christine;Brown, Thomas Huntington
通讯作者：
Brown, Thomas Huntington
影响因子：
2.6
作者：
Brudzynski, SM
通讯作者：
Brudzynski, SM
影响因子：
2.6
作者：
Ehret, G
通讯作者：
Ehret, G
DOI：
10.1098/rstb.2009.0058
发表时间：
2009-08-27
期刊：
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
影响因子：
--
作者：
Bastiaansen JA;Thioux M;Keysers C
通讯作者：
Keysers C
影响因子：
--
作者：
Decety J;Lamm C
通讯作者：
Lamm C