Biological basis of prosocial behaviour in mice and humans

我实验室的HQP最近的研究结果表明，同理心、归属感和亲社会（即，帮助）行为可以在啮齿动物以及人类中以从一个物种到另一个物种的完全转化的方式进行证明和研究。我们已经发现，老鼠能够对彼此的痛苦感同身受，但只有当它们是熟悉的（即，笼中动物）。陌生老鼠之间的移情作用会受到社会压力的阻碍，如果这种压力减少，就可以引发移情作用。这些发现的翻译相关性由我们在人类受试者中获得完全等同的发现这一事实证明。此外，我们发现雌性（而不是雄性）小鼠在疼痛中接近熟悉的动物，而不是避开它们，并且它们越接近受影响的小鼠，疼痛行为就越少。这一观察结果暗示了亲社会行为，这种性别差异在大鼠和人类中也有记录。最后，我们观察到小鼠之间的社会交流，以及小鼠与包括人类在内的其他物种之间的社会交流可以诱导或减轻压力，影响疼痛行为。拟议的研究计划旨在系统地调查（长期）啮齿动物和人类的同情心，亲社会行为，社会沟通和联系的生物学，重点是在短期内检查性别差异，遗传背景和社会经验的影响（即，先天与后天），以及持久的表观遗传（即，DNA相关蛋白）在应激相关基因（例如，编码糖皮质激素受体的Nr3c1）代表了熟悉、移情甚至可能是友谊的核心机制。

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.