Observational fear behavior in rodents as a model for empathy

Abstract

Empathy enables social mammals to recognize and share emotion with others and is well‐documented in non‐human primates. During the past few years, systematic observations have showed that a primal form of empathy also exists in rodents, indicating that empathy has an evolutionary continuity. Now, using rodents exhibiting emotional empathy, the molecular and cellular study of empathy in animals has begun in earnest. In this article, we will review recent reports that indicate that rodents can share states of fear with others, and will try to highlight new understandings of the neural circuitry, biochemistry and genetics of empathic fear. We hope that the use of rodent models will enhance understanding of the mechanisms of human empathy and provide insights into how to treat social deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by empathy impairment.

Conformity-like behaviour in mice observing the freezing of other mice: a model of empathy

“…Consistent with these findings, we also noted significant increases in the percentage of immobility time among observer mice that viewed demonstrator mice with excessive immobility due to fear learning. This result is in accordance with previous findings regarding the fear observation system [33]. However, it remains unclear whether immobility among observer mice is due to empathy or conformity for the demonstrator.…”

“…In the last decade, paradigms designed to investigate indirect fear conditioning in laboratory rodents have rapidly emerged in the literature [33]. However, in these observation systems, it remains unclear whether the observer mouse truly recognises the movements of and empathises with the demonstrator mouse.…”

Neural Basis of Observational Fear Learning: A Potential Model of Affective Empathy

“…Observational fear is induced by social transmission of the demonstrator animal's affective state and should therefore be dependent on social perception and integrated social cognitive processes (Jeon et al, 2010;. By definition, this process, in which recognition of the demonstrator's distress triggers fear in the observer, is a form of affective (emotional) empathy and is a critical factor in the transmission of social fear (Jeon et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2019;Panksepp and Lahvis, 2011). Indeed, studies in primates and humans have demonstrated that stronger vicar-ious fear responses were positively associated with trait empathy (Kleberg et al, 2015;Olsson et al, 2016).…”

Effects of maternal deprivation and complex housing on pro-social behavior in rats: An automated, operant task examining motivation to liberate a trapped conspecific

“…Emotional contagion, i.e. the capacity to experience and share the emotions of others, is considered an evolutionary well-preserved mechanism that helps individuals to survive, not only in a dangerous savanna, but also within social groups (Preston and De Waal, 2001;de Waal, 2008;Kim et al, 2019) . Rodents, like many other animals, experience and learn from emotional contagion, as shown in studies on emotional contagion for pain (Church, 1959;Langford, 2006;Langford et al, 2010;Atsak et al, 2011;Pereira et al, 2012;Li et al, 2014;Cruz et al, 2020) and observational fear conditioning (Kavaliers et al, 2003;Jeon et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2010;Allsop et al, 2018;Keum and Shin, 2019;Nomura et al, 2019).…”