H2020Индивидуална стипендия2017–2019

SOCIORATS · Social Distress Response in the Context of Empathy in Rats

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2017-08-01 → 2019-07-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 165 599 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF-EF-ST

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Накратко на български

Емпатията при плъховете се изследва чрез тяхното желание да избягват действия, които причиняват болка на другите. Това помага за разбирането на неврологичните причини за антисоциалното поведение и липсата на съпричастност при хората.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Social Distress Response in the Context of Empathy in Rats

Learning to avoid actions that harm others is an important aspect of human development [1], and the lack of such aversion to harm others is a hallmark of antisocial psychiatric disorders including psychopathy and conduct disorder with reduced empathy [2]. What could motivate humans and other animals to refrain from harming others? Part of the answer to that question has been argued to be empathy, i.e., the ability to share another individual’s feelings. Empathy is ubiquitous in humans [3], and not only observedis not only responsible in for the shared happiness of a friend's success and joy, but also in for the consoling gestures towards people in sorrow and pain [4]. An influential theory posits that vicarious emotions (i.e., felt by a witness, in the stead of the witnessed individual) experienced when observing other's distress triggers harm aversion [5], i.e., the avoidance of situations and options associated with pain to other’s. Accordingly, it has been argued that psychiatric disorders characterized by anti-social behavior and a lack of empathic concern [2,6] might stem from malfunctioning or biased processing of vicarious emotions [7,8]. The objectives of this project are to 1) develop and validate a behavioral essay in rats to study harm aversion and 2) characterize the neural bases of harm aversion in rats. 1. Wilson, D. (2015). Altruism in everyday life. In Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others (Yale University Press), pp. 117–129. 2. Blair, R.J.R. (2013). The neurobiology of psychopathic traits in youths. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 14, 786–99. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24105343%5Cn 3. Preston, S.D., and Waal, F.B.M. De (2002). Empathy202f: Its ultimate and proximate bases. 1–71. 4. Cornish, J.L., Shahnawaz, Z., Thompson, M.R., Wong, S., Morley, K.C., Hunt, G.E., and McGregor, I.S. (2003). Heat increases 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine self-administration and social effects in rats. Eur. J. Pharmacol. 482, 339–341. 5. Smith, A. (1759). Theory of Moral Sentiments Cambridge. 6. Blair, R.J.R., Budhani, S., Colledge, E., and Scott, S. (2005). Deafness to fear in boys with psychopathic tendencies. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry Allied Discip. 46, 327–336. 7. Meffert, H., Gazzola, V., den Boer, J.A., Bartels, A.A.J., and Keysers, C. (2013). Reduced spontaneous but relatively normal deliberate vicarious representations in psychopathy. Brain 136, 2550–2562. 8. Keysers, C., and Gazzola, V. (2014). Dissociating the ability and propensity for empathy. Trends Cogn. Sci. 18, 163–6.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Why do humans behave pro-socially to such an extent that it supports the life of other individuals? Similarly, why do certain people harm others by hurting and sometimes killing? Finally, how can we promote pro-sociality and limit harmful actions? The philosopher and economist Adam Smith considered that what motivates us to help a person is that we can “place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments"", thus, holding empathy as the driving force of prosociality. Human neuroimaging studies show that two brain structures, the anterior insula (AI) and the rostral cingulate cortex (rCC), are involved in empathy. Yet, it remains unknown whether these structures are involved in consequent behaviors, i.e., helping or hurting others. With this fellowship, I intend to fill this gap: I propose an approach to causally test Adam Smith's theory, which will produce findings of tangible societal benefits by informing populations worldwide whether prosocial programs can limit fighting and bullying, and by providing novel pharmacological targets for the treatment anti-social disorders.Because human neuroimaging is severely limited in its ability to establish causal links between brain activity and behavior, we will use a rat model to study empathy-driven prosociality. Considering that a suited rodent model is completely lacking in the field, we will develop a paradigm where actor rats choose between two levers; while both yield the same reward, one requires more effort to be activated. Once preference for the easy lever has been quantified, it will be paired with an electric shock delivered to another rat. The impact of social distress on the actor's choice will provide a way to study prosocial and aggressive behavior. In a second time, we will deactivate the rCC and AI in order to causally explore the role of each structure in prosociality. Finally, we will use calcium-imaging to map and characterize the neural networks involved.""

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

KONINKLIJKE NEDERLANDSE AKADEMIE VAN WETENSCHAPPEN - KNAW · AMSTERDAMКоординаторНидерландия