Neural correlates of ingroup bias for prosociality in rats

Prosocial behavior, in particular helping others in need, occurs preferentially in response to distress of one’s own group members. In order to explore the neural mechanisms promoting mammalian helping behavior, a discovery-based approach was used here to identify brain-wide activity correlated with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2021-07, Vol.10
Main Authors: Ben-Ami Bartal, Inbal, Breton, Jocelyn M, Sheng, Huanjie, Long, Kimberly LP, Chen, Stella, Halliday, Aline, Kenney, Justin W, Wheeler, Anne L, Frankland, Paul, Shilyansky, Carrie, Deisseroth, Karl, Keltner, Dacher, Kaufer, Daniela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
c-Fos protein
Calcium imaging
Empathy
helping
Helping behavior
ingroup bias
Motivation
Neostriatum
Neural circuitry
neural network
Neural networks
Neuroimaging
Neuroscience
Nucleus accumbens
Prejudices
prosocial
Psychological research
Reinforcement
Social behavior
social brain
Social identity
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Summary:Prosocial behavior, in particular helping others in need, occurs preferentially in response to distress of one’s own group members. In order to explore the neural mechanisms promoting mammalian helping behavior, a discovery-based approach was used here to identify brain-wide activity correlated with helping behavior in rats. Demonstrating social selectivity, rats helped others of their strain (‘ingroup’), but not rats of an unfamiliar strain (‘outgroup’), by releasing them from a restrainer. Analysis of brain-wide neural activity via quantification of the early-immediate gene c-Fos identified a shared network, including frontal and insular cortices, that was active in the helping test irrespective of group membership. In contrast, the striatum was selectively active for ingroup members, and activity in the nucleus accumbens, a central network hub, correlated with helping. In vivo calcium imaging showed accumbens activity when rats approached a trapped ingroup member, and retrograde tracing identified a subpopulation of accumbens-projecting cells that was correlated with helping. These findings demonstrate that motivation and reward networks are associated with helping an ingroup member and provide the first description of neural correlates of ingroup bias in rodents.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.65582