Biological basis of prosocial behaviour in mice and humans

我实验室的HQP最近的发现表明，在啮齿动物和人类身上，可以完全翻译的方式在啮齿动物和人类身上证明和研究同理心、从属关系和亲社会(即帮助)行为。我们已经发现，老鼠能够对彼此的痛苦产生共鸣，但只有当它们是熟悉的(即，笼子伴侣)时。陌生老鼠之间的共鸣可以通过社会压力来阻止，如果这种压力减少，就可以引发这种共鸣。我们在人类受试者身上得到了精确相同的发现，这证明了这些发现的翻译相关性。此外，我们发现雌性(但不是雄性)小鼠在疼痛中接近家人而不是回避他们，而且他们越接近他们，受影响的小鼠的疼痛行为就越少。这一观察结果暗示了亲社会行为，这种性别差异在老鼠和人类身上也有记录。最后，我们观察到小鼠之间的社会交流，以及小鼠和包括人类在内的其他物种之间的社会交流可以诱导或缓解压力，影响疼痛行为。拟议的研究计划旨在系统地研究(在长期)啮齿动物和人类的共情、亲社会行为、社会交流和联系的生物学，短期重点是检查性别差异、遗传背景和社会经历的影响(即，先天和后天)，以及压力相关基因(例如，编码糖皮质激素受体的NR3C1)的持久表观遗传(即DNA相关蛋白)变化代表熟悉、同理心甚至友谊的核心机制的可能性。

Recent findings from HQP in my laboratory have suggested that empathy, affiliation and prosocial (i.e., helping) behaviour can be demonstrated and studied in rodents as well as humans, in a completely translational manner from one species to the other. We have found that mice are capable of empathy for each other's pain, but only when they are familiars (i.e., cage mates). Empathy among stranger mice is prevented by social stress, and can be elicited if this stress is reduced. The translational relevance of these findings is evidenced by the fact that we obtain precisely equivalent findings in human subjects. Furthermore, we find that female (but not male) mice approach familiars in pain rather than avoiding them, and that the more they approach the less pain behaviour is seen in the affected mouse. This observation is suggestive of prosocial behaviour, and this sex difference has been documented in rats and humans as well. Finally, we have observed that social communication between mice, and social communication between mice and other species including humans can induce or ameliorate stress, affecting pain behaviour. The proposed research program is designed to systematically investigate (in the long term) the biology of empathy, prosocial behaviour, social communication and affiliation in both rodents and humans, with an emphasis in the short term on examining sex differences, the effect of genetic background and social experiences (i.e., nature vs. nurture), and the possibility that enduring epigenetic (i.e., DNA-associated protein) changes in stress-related genes (e.g., Nr3c1, encoding the glucocorticoid receptor) represent the core mechanism underlying familiarity, empathy, and possibly even friendship.