Biological basis of prosocial behaviour in mice and humans

小鼠和人类亲社会行为的生物学基础

• 批准号: 435224-2013
• 负责人: Mogil, Jeffrey
• 金额: $ 4.88万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=631402
• 关键词: Biological; basis; prosocial; behaviour; mice

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.

在我的实验室里，HQP最近的研究结果表明，同理心、隶属关系和亲社会（即帮助）行为可以在啮齿动物和人类身上得到证明和研究，并且可以从一个物种到另一个物种完全转化。我们发现，老鼠能够对彼此的痛苦感同身受，但只有当它们是熟悉的（即笼子里的同伴）。陌生老鼠之间的同理心会受到社会压力的阻碍，如果这种压力减少，就会被激发出来。我们在人类受试者中获得了完全相同的结果，这一事实证明了这些发现的翻译相关性。此外，我们发现雌性（而不是雄性）老鼠在疼痛中接近熟悉的人而不是避开他们，而且它们接近得越多，在受影响的老鼠身上看到的疼痛行为就越少。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载。最后，我们观察到小鼠之间的社会交往，以及小鼠与包括人类在内的其他物种之间的社会交往可以诱导或改善压力，影响疼痛行为。拟议的研究计划旨在系统地调查（长期）啮齿动物和人类的移情、亲社会行为、社会沟通和联系的生物学，并在短期内重点研究性别差异、遗传背景和社会经验的影响（即先天与后天），以及持久表观遗传（即dna相关蛋白）在压力相关基因(如Nr3c1，编码糖皮质激素受体)代表了熟悉、同理心，甚至可能是友谊的核心机制。