Social modulation of and by pain in mice and humans

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Findings from HQP in my laboratory have suggested that empathy, affiliation and prosocial behaviour can be demonstrated and studied in rodents as well as humans, in a completely translational manner from one species to another. For example, we have found that in both humans and mice that only familiars demonstrate emotional contagion of (i.e., empathy for) pain, and in both species emotional contagion among strangers is blocked by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress response. More recently, we have found that in humans, like in mice, females engage in social approach behaviour to others in pain, whereas males do not. The proposed research program is designed to continue to investigate parallel social phenomena affecting pain, and parallel effects of pain on social behaviour, in both mice and humans. We will do so using the most ethologically relevant techniques practical in both species. Social psychology experiments in human participants will involve a variety of social interactions, presentation of chemosignals, and pain testing using the cold-pressor task. In mice, we will institute a visible burrow system in the laboratory to study social behaviours without the major confounds of stress inherent in both laboratory animal husbandry and laboratory behavioural testing. Since our data obtained to date in this domain shows robust sex differences, we will also attempt to further investigate the nature of these differences. This will be achieved partly using a developmental perspective, to assess whether differences observed in young adults can also be seen in pediatric and mature adult populations. It is anticipated that these studies will have implications for our understanding of the role of genetics versus sociocultural influences on social phenomena such as empathy and prosociality, and for sex versus gender differences therein.