Cortical regulation of helping behaviour towards others in pain

Mingmin Zhang; Ye Emily Wu; Mengping Jiang; Weizhe Hong

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06973-x

Cortical regulation of helping behaviour towards others in pain

Nature. 2024 Feb;626(7997):136-144. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06973-x. Epub 2024 Jan 24.

Authors

Mingmin Zhang^#^{1

2}, Ye Emily Wu^#^{1

2

3}, Mengping Jiang^{1

2}, Weizhe Hong^{4

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
² Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. whong@ucla.edu.
⁵ Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. whong@ucla.edu.
⁶ Department of Bioengineering, Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. whong@ucla.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38267578
PMCID: PMC10925558 (available on 2025-02-01)
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06973-x

Abstract

Humans and animals exhibit various forms of prosocial helping behaviour towards others in need^1-3. Although previous research has investigated how individuals may perceive others' states^4,5, 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.

MeSH terms

Animals
Behavior, Animal* / physiology
Coping Skills
Empathy* / physiology
Grooming
Gyrus Cinguli* / cytology
Gyrus Cinguli* / physiology
Helping Behavior*
Mice
Pain*
Social Behavior*
Stress, Psychological
Wounds and Injuries

Abstract

MeSH terms

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