Thread by @MoeNeuro

Mice display empathy using the same brain structures as humans: Check out our paper in @ScienceMagazine about how distinct neuronal circuits are involved in empathy for companion mice who are experiencing pain or pain relief vs fear science.sciencemag.org/content/371/65… Explainer THREAD 1/10

Rapid Social Transfer of Pain: Following only a 1h social interaction with a mouse experiencing pain, “bystander” mice acquire an aversive pain state. We believe this model demonstrates key components of empathy. #Neuroscience #SciTwitter #research #didyouknow 2/10

Rapid Social Transfer of Analgesia: We also found that after a 1h social interaction w/a mouse experiencing pain+morphine analgesia, “bystander” mice acquire pain relief in the absence of drug administration! Pain relief can be socially transmitted to a social partner! 3/10

Anterior Cingulate (ACC) to Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) Neurocircuit: We found that the social transfer of pain activates the ACC, a region integral to human pain/empathy. And ACC neurons directly project onto cells in the NAc that are also activated by social transfer. 4/10

ACC-NAc projections bidirectionally control the social transfer of pain: Optogenetic inhibition of the ACC and ACC-NAc projections prevented the social transfer of pain to bystanders and optogenetic activation of ACC-NAc projections during social transfer prolongs pain. 5/10

ACC-NAc projections control the social transfer of pain, analgesia but not fear: Optogenetic inhibition of ACC-NAc prevents socially transferred analgesia, but has no impact on socially transferred fear, which is dependent upon ACC projections to basolateral amygdala. 6/10

Summary: Mice rapidly adopt the sensory-affective state of a social partner (pain, fear, and pain relief/analgesia). ACC-to-NAc input activity is necessary for the social transfer of pain and analgesia but not the social transfer of fear, which requires ACC-to-BLA. 7/10

I was most surprised that analgesia (pain relief) is acquired from a social interaction w/mouse on morphine, & that this was controlled by the same neural circuit as the social transfer of pain-This suggests that mice display empathy for positive and negative experiences! 8/10

If the social transfer of pain and analgesia also occurs in humans, in theory, we should think about the impact of caring for pain patients on caregivers and healthcare workers. But, this obviously needs to be directly investigated in humans- 9/10

& finally, I was also thrilled to find that distinct ACC neural circuits regulate the social transfer of pain- and fear-related information. This was especially cool bc the ACC is consistently activated during the experience of pain and empathy in humans! 10/10 #sciencetwitter

@fabtext