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Pro-social behavior in rats is modulated by social experience
Open accessAbstract
In mammals, helping is preferentially provided to members of one’s own group. Yet, it remains unclear how social experience shapes pro-social motivation. We found that rats helped trapped strangers by releasing them from a restrainer, just as they did cagemates. However, rats did not help strangers of a different strain, unless previously housed with the trapped rat. Moreover, pair-housing with one rat of a different strain prompted rats to help strangers of that strain, evidence that rats expand pro-social motivation from one individual to phenotypically similar others. To test if genetic relatedness alone can motivate helping, rats were fostered from birth with another strain and were not exposed to their own strain. As adults, fostered rats helped strangers of the fostering strain but not rats of their own strain. Thus, strain familiarity, even to one’s own strain, is required for the expression of pro-social behavior.
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“First, prosocial effects are evident in pair-bonded voles and familiar female mice, but not between strangers or in male mice; this may also generalize to rats42 (but see25).”
From Insular cortex mediates approach and avoidance responses to social affective stimuli (2018) · cites this paper as [42]
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“Various factors of social context are involved in empathy (Bartal et al., 2014; Yamagishi et al., 2019).”
From Helping behavior in prairie voles: a model of empathy and the importance of oxytocin (2022) · cites this paper as Bartal et al., 2014
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“Rats display as much helping behavior toward strangers as toward cagemates (Bartal et al., 2014; Yamagishi et al., 2019).”
From Helping behavior in prairie voles: a model of empathy and the importance of oxytocin (2022) · cites this paper as Bartal et al., 2014
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Metadata
- Authors
- Ben-Ami Bartal, I., Rodgers, D. A., Bernardez Sarria, M. S., Decety, J., & Mason, P.
- Affiliations
- Department of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
- University of Chicago (US)
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
- Corresponding author
- Mason, Peggy
- ORCID
- Mason, Peggy
- Venue
- eLife
- Publisher
- eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
- Published
- 2014-01-14
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- e01385-e01385
- ISSN
- 2050-084X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3884117
- OpenAlex
- W2115556017
- Cited by
- 286
- References
- 66
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 9
- FWCI
- 35.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- eLife (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Knowledge@UChicago (University of Chicago) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- University of Chicago (cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (DA022978, DA022429)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- prosocial behavior, helping behavior, social experience, genetic relatedness, foster rearing, kin selection, rats
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Social Behavior, Rats
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