Genes Brain and Behavior最新文献

{"title":"Abnormal sensory perception masks behavioral performance of Grin1 knockdown mice","authors":"Tatiana Lipina,&nbsp;Xiaoyu Men,&nbsp;Matisse Blundell,&nbsp;Ali Salahpour,&nbsp;Amy J. Ramsey","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12825","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12825","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The development and function of sensory systems require intact glutamatergic neurotransmission. Changes in touch sensation and vision are common symptoms in autism spectrum disorders, where altered glutamatergic neurotransmission is strongly implicated. Further, cortical visual impairment is a frequent symptom of GRIN disorder, a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disorder caused by pathogenic variants of GRIN genes that encode NMDA receptors. We asked if Grin1 knockdown mice (Grin1KD), as a model of GRIN disorder, had visual impairments resulting from NMDA receptor deficiency. We discovered that Grin1KD mice had deficient visual depth perception in the visual cliff test. Since Grin1KD mice are known to display robust changes in measures of learning, memory, and emotionality, we asked whether deficits in these higher-level processes could be partly explained by their visual impairment. By changing the experimental conditions to improve visual signals, we observed significant improvements in the performance of Grin1KD mice in tests that measure spatial memory, executive function, and anxiety. We went further and found destabilization of the outer segment of retina together with the deficient number and size of Meissner corpuscles (mechanical sensor) in the hind paw of Grin1KD mice. Overall, our findings suggest that abnormal sensory perception can mask the expression of emotional, motivational and cognitive behavior of Grin1KD mice. This study demonstrates new methods to adapt routine behavioral paradigms to reveal the contribution of vision and other sensory modalities in cognitive performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/38/11/GBB-21-e12825.PMC9744498.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10728739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ultrasonic vocalizations in laboratory mice: strain, age, and sex differences","authors":"Angela Caruso,&nbsp;Maria Adelaide Marconi,&nbsp;Maria Luisa Scattoni,&nbsp;Laura Ricceri","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12815","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12815","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in different social contexts across lifespan. There is ethological evidence that pup USVs elicit maternal retrieval and adult USVs facilitate social interaction with a conspecific. Analysis of mouse vocal and social repertoire across strains, sex and contexts remains not well explored. To address these issues, in inbred (C57BL/6, FVB) and outbred (CD-1) mouse strains, we recorded and evaluated USVs as neonates and during adult social encounters (male–female and female–female social interaction). We showed significant strain differences in the quantitative (call rate and duration of USVs) and qualitative vocal analysis (spectrographic characterization) from early stage to adulthood, in line with specific patterns of social behaviors. Inbred C57BL/6 mice produced a lower number of calls with less internal changes and shorter duration; inbred FVB mice displayed more social behaviors and produced more syllables with repeated internal changes; outbred CD-1 mice had an intermediate profile. Our results suggest specific vocal signatures in each mouse strain, thus helping to better define socio-communicative profiles of mouse strains and to guide the choice of an appropriate strain according to the experimental settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/06/21/GBB-21-e12815.PMC9744514.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10671550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From basic social neurobiology to better understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders","authors":"Andrey E. Ryabinin","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12818","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12818","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This volume concludes our three-part series of Genes, Brain and Behaviors special issues. The previous two volumes started with research on autism and neurodevelopmental disorders, concluding that their full understanding is impossible without understanding of innate social behaviors, and continued into research on mechanisms of such innate behaviors across several animal species.<span>^{1, 2}</span> The current special issue continues the analysis of innate social behaviors and then brings us back to studies on animal models of neurodevelopmental disorders, hopefully with a greater appreciation for intricacies of social neurobiology.</p><p>In their research paper, Goncalves, Kareklas and colleagues have elegantly addressed a fundamental question on evolution: whether the motivational and the cognitive components comprising social behavior evolved independently or through selective pressure to increase sociality.<span>³</span> To address this question, the authors phenotypically characterized several lines of male and female zebrafish (<i>Danio rerio</i>) in four behavioral tests: shoal preference, conspecific recognition, object recognition and open-field. This characterization clustered behaviors across three principal factors: motivation, cognition and anxiety. Importantly, the social tendency module in this analysis aligned with object and social exploration, and clustered separately from object discrimination and social discrimination, which aligned together. These data provide strong support for the hypothesis that social recognition and social motivation did not evolve together as a common phenotype and instead separately co-opted general cognitive and motivational mechanisms. This conclusion is further supported by analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and behavioral modules. The genetic analysis shows that SNPs in candidate genes associated with social behaviors are statistically associated with the motivational but not the cognitive module. This finding is in agreement with the recent report showing that zebrafish lacking functional oxytocin receptors are deficient in social and object recognition but have intact social motivation.<span>⁴</span> While the well-characterized behavioral repertoire and genetics of zebrafish allows the researchers to conclude that social recognition and social motivation can function as independent entities, this conclusion amplifies the need to study neural mechanisms regulating specific social behaviors, rather than the more generalized “social brain.”</p><p>Not all specific social behaviors, including social behaviors characteristic of humans, can be studied in standard laboratory species. The previous volume of the special issue highlighted the importance of choosing appropriate species for such studies by discussing the power of experiments in socially monogamous prairie voles for understanding the neurobiology of pair-bonding.<span>^{5, 6}</span> T","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744557/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10671546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of pairing on color change and central gene expression in lined seahorses","authors":"Sabrina L. Mederos,&nbsp;Rafael C. Duarte,&nbsp;Mira Mastoras,&nbsp;Megan Y. Dennis,&nbsp;Matthew L. Settles,&nbsp;Allison R. Lau,&nbsp;Alexandria Scott,&nbsp;Kacie Woodward,&nbsp;Colby Johnson,&nbsp;Adele M. H. Seelke,&nbsp;Karen L. Bales","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12812","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12812","url":null,"abstract":"Social monogamy is a reproductive strategy characterized by pair living and defense of a common territory. Pair bonding, sometimes displayed by monogamous species, is an affective construct that includes preference for a specific partner, distress upon separation, and the ability of the partner to buffer against stress. Many seahorse species show a monogamous social structure in the wild, but their pair bond has not been well studied. We examined the gene expression of lined seahorses (Hippocampus erectus) during and after the process of pairing in the laboratory as well as color change (luminance), a potential form of social communication and behavioral synchrony between pair mates. When a seahorse of either sex was interacting with its pair mate, their changes in luminance (“brightness”) were correlated and larger than when interacting with an opposite‐sex stranger. At the conclusion of testing, subjects were euthanized, RNA was extracted from whole brains and analyzed via RNA sequencing. Changes in gene expression in paired males versus those that were unpaired included processes governing metabolic activity, hormones and cilia. Perhaps most interesting is the overlap in gene expression change induced by pairing in both male seahorses and male prairie voles, including components of hormone systems regulating reproduction. Because of our limited sample size, we consider our results and interpretations to be preliminary, and prompts for further exploration. Future studies will expand upon these findings and investigate the neuroendocrine and genetic basis of these behaviors.","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/97/5a/GBB-21-e12812.PMC9744553.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10728729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Social deficits in BTBR T+ Itpr3tf/J mice vary with ecological validity of the test","authors":"Maciej Winiarski,&nbsp;Ludwika Kondrakiewicz,&nbsp;Kacper Kondrakiewicz,&nbsp;Joanna Jędrzejewska-Szmek,&nbsp;Krzysztof Turzyński,&nbsp;Ewelina Knapska,&nbsp;Ksenia Meyza","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12814","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12814","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Translational value of mouse models of neuropsychiatric disorders depends heavily on the accuracy with which they replicate symptoms observed in the human population. In mouse models of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) these include, among others, social affiliation, and communication deficits as well as impairments in understanding and perception of others. Most studies addressing these issues in the BTBR T+ Itpr3tf/J mouse, an idiopathic model of ASD, were based on short dyadic interactions of often non-familiar partners placed in a novel environment. In such stressful and variable conditions, the reproducibility of the phenotype was low. Here, we compared physical conditions and the degree of habituation of mice at the time of testing in the three chambered social affiliation task, as well as parameters used to measure social deficits and found that both the level of stress and human bias profoundly affect the results of the test. To minimize these effects, we tested social preference and network dynamics in mice group-housed in the Eco-HAB system. This automated recording allowed for long-lasting monitoring of differences in social repertoire (including interest in social stimuli) in BTBR T+ Itpr3tf/J and normosocial c57BL/6J mice. With these observations we further validate the BTBR T+ Itpr3tf/J mouse as a model for ASD, but at the same time emphasize the need for more ecological testing of social behavior within all constructs of the Systems for Social Processes domain (as defined by the Research Domain Criteria framework).</p>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744492/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10671538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The developmental impact of sex chromosome trisomies on emerging executive functions in young children: Evidence from neurocognitive tests and daily life skills","authors":"Kimberly C. Kuiper,&nbsp;Hanna Swaab,&nbsp;Nicole Tartaglia,&nbsp;Griet van Buggenhout,&nbsp;Caroline Wouters,&nbsp;Sophie van Rijn","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12811","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12811","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sex chromosomal trisomies (SCT) are associated with impairments in executive functions in school-aged children, adolescents, and adults. However, knowledge on preschool development of executive functions is limited but greatly needed to guide early intervention. The current study examined emerging executive functions in young children with SCT. Participants were 72 SCT children and 70 population-based controls, aged 3–7 years, who completed a neurocognitive assessment of both global executive function (MEFS) and verbal executive function skills (NEPSY Word Generation). Caregivers completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) questionnaire to capture real-world behavioral manifestations of impairments in executive functions. Results showed that impairments were significantly more prevalent in SCT than in controls and already present from 3 years, specifically verbal executive functions and working memory. Broader more pronounced impairments were found in older children with SCT. Age was significantly related to executive functions, but specific domains showed different relations with age. For example, deficits in planning and organizing remained evident with older age in SCT whereas it declined with age in controls. Impairments in executive functions were present across different levels of intelligence. Already at an early age, impairments across executive functions should be considered part of the neurodevelopmental profile of SCT, which appear more prominent at later age. Future studies should investigate developmental pathways of executive functions in SCT, given its relevance in cognitive, social, and emotional development. Executive functions should be screened and monitored in children with SCT and could be an important target of preventive intervention.</p>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744538/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10728721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Global loss of Neuron-specific gene 1 causes alterations in motor coordination, increased anxiety, and diurnal hyperactivity in male mice","authors":"Roman Austin,&nbsp;Praveen Chander,&nbsp;Amber J. Zimmerman,&nbsp;Malene Overby,&nbsp;Laura Digilio,&nbsp;Chan Choo Yap,&nbsp;David N. Linsenbardt,&nbsp;Heidi Kaastrup Müller,&nbsp;Jason P. Weick","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12816","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12816","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Neuron-specific gene family (NSG1-3) consists of small endolysosomal proteins that are critical for trafficking multiple receptors and signaling molecules in neurons. NSG1 has been shown to play a critical role in AMPAR recycling from endosomes to plasma membrane during synaptic plasticity. However, to date nothing is known about whether NSG1 is required for normal behavior at an organismal level. Here we performed a battery of behavioral tests to determine whether loss of NSG1 would affect motor, cognitive, and/or affective behaviors, as well as circadian-related activity. Consistent with unique cerebellar expression of NSG1 among family members, we found that NSG1 was obligatory for motor coordination but not for gross motor function or learning. NSG1 knockout (KO) also altered performance across other behavioral modalities including anxiety-related and diurnal activity paradigms. Surprisingly, NSG1 KO did not cause significant impairments across all tasks within a given modality, but had specific effects within each modality. For instance, we found increases in anxiety-related behaviors in tasks with multiple stressors (e.g., elevation and exposure), but not those with a single main stressor (e.g., exposure). Interestingly, NSG1 KO animals displayed a significant increase in locomotor activity during subjective daytime, suggesting a possible impact on diurnal activity rhythms or vigilance. Surprisingly, loss of NSG1 had no effect on hippocampal-dependent learning despite previous studies showing deficits in CA1 long-term potentiation. Together, these findings do not support a role of NSG1 in hippocampal-dependent learning, but support a role in mediating proper neuronal function across amygdalar and cerebellar circuits.</p>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9262855/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9225041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correlation between intestinal microbiotal imbalance and 5-HT metabolism, immune inflammation in chronic unpredictable mild stress male rats","authors":"Huawei Li,&nbsp;Peng Wang,&nbsp;Yunping Zhou,&nbsp;Fei Zhao,&nbsp;Xue Gao,&nbsp;Chunfeng Wu,&nbsp;Tianxia Wu,&nbsp;Liping Jiang,&nbsp;Dianliang Zhang","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12806","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12806","url":null,"abstract":"<p>To explore the role of intestinal microbiota on the occurrence of depression-like behavior. Twenty male adult Wistar rats were randomly divided into control and experimental groups. Depression-like behavior of the rats was validated using sucrose preference test (SPT) and forced swimming test (FST) after chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) for 3 weeks. Fecal microbiota was analyzed through 16S rRNA sequence analysis. The levels of 5-HT and inflammatory factors in the colon, brain and sera were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), quantitative PCR (qPCR) and western blotting analyses. The percentage of different types of immune cells in the peripheral blood was determined through flow cytometry. CUMS caused depression-like symptoms, including anhedonia and desperate behavior. Significant differences were found in the structure and abundance of intestinal microbiota. CUMS intervention significantly increased the levels of 5-HT and <i>Tph1</i> in the colon and decreased the level of <i>Scl6a4</i>. The concentrations of 5-HT and <i>Tph2</i> in the prefrontal and hippocampal tissues were lower, while <i>IDO1</i> was higher. Certain cytokines, such as IL-6, IL-1 and TNF-ɑ, were significantly elevated in peripheral blood, while the percentage of CD3⁺ CD4⁺ double-positive cells and CD4⁺/CD8⁺ ratio were downregulated in the CUMS group. Pearson correlation analysis showed that intestinal microbiota was significantly associated with not only the metabolism of 5-HT in intestinal and brain tissues, but also with the proportion of immune cells and certain cytokines. Stress can lead to disturbances in the intestinal microbial structure, which may contribute to depression by interfering with 5-HT metabolism and immune inflammatory responses.</p>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/ac/63/GBB-21-e12806.PMC9744555.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10662821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phenotypic architecture of sociality and its associated genetic polymorphisms in zebrafish","authors":"Claúdia Gonçalves,&nbsp;Kyriacos Kareklas,&nbsp;Magda C. Teles,&nbsp;Susana A. M. Varela,&nbsp;João Costa,&nbsp;Ricardo B. Leite,&nbsp;Tiago Paixão,&nbsp;Rui F. Oliveira","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12809","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12809","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sociality relies on motivational and cognitive components that may have evolved independently, or may have been linked by phenotypic correlations driven by a shared selective pressure for increased social competence. Furthermore, these components may be domain-specific or of general-domain across social and non-social contexts. Here, we used zebrafish to test if the motivational and cognitive components of social behavior are phenotypically linked and if they are domain specific or of general domain. The behavioral phenotyping of zebrafish in social and equivalent non-social tests shows that the motivational (preference) and cognitive (memory) components of sociality: (1) are independent from each other, hence not supporting the occurrence of a sociality syndrome; and (2) are phenotypically linked to non-social traits, forming two general behavioral modules, suggesting that sociality traits have been co-opted from general-domain motivational and cognitive traits. Moreover, the study of the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and each behavioral module further supports this view, since several SNPs from a list of candidate “social” genes, are statistically associated with the motivational, but not with the cognitive, behavioral module. Together, these results support the occurrence of general-domain motivational and cognitive behavioral modules in zebrafish, which have been co-opted for the social domain.</p>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/e1/fd/GBB-21-e12809.PMC9744564.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10668104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Experience of a hierarchical relationship between a pair of mice specifically influences their affective empathy toward each other","authors":"Jungjoon Park,&nbsp;Seungshin Ha,&nbsp;Hee-Sup Shin,&nbsp;Jaeseung Jeong","doi":"10.1111/gbb.12810","DOIUrl":"10.1111/gbb.12810","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Prior experience of social hierarchy is known to modulate emotional contagion, a basic form of affective empathy. However, it is not known whether this behavioral effect occurs through changes in an individual's traits due to their experience of social hierarchy or specific social interrelationships between the individuals. Groups of four mice with an established in-group hierarchy were used to address this in conjunction with a tube test. The rank-1 and rank-4 mice were designated as the dominant or subordinate groups, respectively. The two individuals in between were designated as the intermediate groups, which were then used as the observers in observational fear learning (OFL) experiments, an assay for emotional contagion. The intermediate observers showed greater OFL responses to the dominant demonstrator than the subordinate demonstrators recruited from the same home-cage. When the demonstrators were strangers from different cages, the intermediate observers did not distinguish between dominant and subordinate, displaying the same level of OFL. In a reverse setting in which the intermediate group was used as the demonstrator, the subordinate observers showed higher OFL responses than the dominant observers, and this occurred only when the demonstrators were cagemates of the observers. Furthermore, the bigger the rank difference between a pair, the higher the OFL level that the observer displayed. Altogether, these results demonstrate that the hierarchical interrelationship established between a given pair of animals is critical for expressing emotional contagion between them rather than any potential changes in intrinsic traits due to the experience of dominant/subordinate hierarchy.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Practitioner points</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Subordinate observer or dominant demonstrator resulted in higher affective empathic response in familiar pairs but not unfamiliar pairs.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The relative social rank of the observer with respect to the demonstrator had a negative linear correlation with the affective empathic response of the observer in familiar pairs but not unfamiliar pairs.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The effect of social rank on affective empathy is attributed to the prior social hierarchical interrelationship between them and is not due to intrinsic attributes of an individual based on one's dominance rank.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":50426,"journal":{"name":"Genes Brain and Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/b6/0a/GBB-21-e12810.PMC9744536.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10671524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}