Harm to Others Acts as a Negative Reinforcer in Rats.

Current Biology : CB
Julen Hernandez-LallementChristian Keysers

Abstract

Empathy, the ability to share another individual's emotional state and/or experience, has been suggested to be a source of prosocial motivation by attributing negative value to actions that harm others. The neural underpinnings and evolution of such harm aversion remain poorly understood. Here, we characterize an animal model of harm aversion in which a rat can choose between two levers providing equal amounts of food but one additionally delivering a footshock to a neighboring rat. We find that independently of sex and familiarity, rats reduce their usage of the preferred lever when it causes harm to a conspecific, displaying an individually varying degree of harm aversion. Prior experience with pain increases this effect. In additional experiments, we show that rats reduce the usage of the harm-inducing lever when it delivers twice, but not thrice, the number of pellets than the no-harm lever, setting boundaries on the magnitude of harm aversion. Finally, we show that pharmacological deactivation of the anterior cingulate cortex, a region we have shown to be essential for emotional contagion, reduces harm aversion while leaving behavioral flexibility unaffected. This model of harm aversion might help shed light onto the neura...Continue Reading

Citations

Jun 13, 2020·PLoS Biology·Patricia L LockwoodMatthew A J Apps
Aug 28, 2020·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Joana B VieiraAndreas Olsson
Jan 27, 2021·Current Opinion in Neurobiology·Peggy Mason
Nov 3, 2020·Behavioural Pharmacology·Stewart S Cox, Carmela M Reichel
Mar 26, 2020·Current Biology : CB·Diego Scheggia, Francesco Papaleo
Mar 24, 2021·Current Opinion in Neurobiology·Enrica ParadisoChristian Keysers
Aug 18, 2020·NeuroImage·Emilie A CasparValeria Gazzola
Jun 9, 2021·Current Biology : CB·Lauren A CrewJames M Hyman
Jun 9, 2021·Current Biology : CB·Christian Keysers, Valeria Gazzola
Jun 7, 2021·Current Opinion in Neurobiology·Seong-Wook KimHee-Sup Shin
Jul 15, 2021·IScience·Siqi FanSteve W C Chang
Jul 18, 2021·Scientific Reports·Diana F CostaCristina Márquez
Jul 14, 2021·ELife·Inbal Ben-Ami BartalDaniela Kaufer
Aug 2, 2020·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Patricia L LockwoodSteve W C Chang
Oct 7, 2020·Current Biology : CB·Tobias Kalenscher

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