小柯机器人

美国加州大学Weizhe Hong团队近期取得重要工作进展，他们研究解析了对在他人疼痛时的帮助行为的皮质调节。相关研究成果2024年1月24日在线发表于《自然》杂志上。

据介绍，人类和动物对有需要的人表现出各种形式的亲社会帮助行为。尽管之前的研究已经调查了个人如何感知他人的状态，但他们如何通过帮助行为来回应他人的需求和目标的神经机制在很大程度上仍然未知。

研究人员发现老鼠对其它经历身体疼痛和损伤的个体有一种帮助行为，它们表现出专门针对损伤部位的舔舐（社交舔）行为，这有助于接受者应对疼痛。使用显微内镜成像，研究人员发现前扣带皮层（ACC）的单个神经元和整体活动编码他人的疼痛状态，这种表现与其他人的一般压力不同。

此外，功能操作证明了ACC在双向控制目标舔舐中的因果作用。这种行为表现在ACC的群体编码中，该行为不同于一般的个体安慰行为。个体安慰行为是由他人的情绪压力引发的一种独特的亲社会行为。

总之，这些发现促进了人们对帮助行为的神经编码和调节的理解。

附：英文原文

Title: Cortical regulation of helping behaviour towards others in pain

Author: Zhang, Mingmin, Wu, Ye Emily, Jiang, Mengping, Hong, Weizhe

Issue&Volume: 2024-01-24

Abstract: Humans and animals exhibit various forms of prosocial helping behaviour towards others in need1,2,3. Although previous research has investigated how individuals may perceive others’ states4,5, the neural mechanisms of how they respond to others’ needs and goals with helping behaviour remain largely unknown. Here we show that mice engage in a form of helping behaviour towards other individuals experiencing physical pain and injury—they exhibit allolicking (social licking) behaviour specifically towards the injury site, which aids the recipients in coping with pain. Using microendoscopic imaging, we found that single-neuron and ensemble activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) encodes others’ state of pain and that this representation is different from that of general stress in others. Furthermore, functional manipulations demonstrate a causal role of the ACC in bidirectionally controlling targeted allolicking. Notably, this behaviour is represented in a population code in the ACC that differs from that of general allogrooming, a distinct type of prosocial behaviour elicited by others’ emotional stress. These findings advance our understanding of the neural coding and regulation of helping behaviour.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06973-x

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06973-x

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