Neural control of affiliative touch in prosocial interaction

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Ethology
• Social Behavior

Background:

• Prosocial behaviors like affiliative touch are crucial for social species' well-being.
• Affiliative social touch, including allogrooming, strengthens social bonds and consoles distressed individuals.
• The neural mechanisms underlying prosocial touch remain largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural circuits controlling prosocial affiliative touch in mice.
• To understand how the brain processes distress cues and elicits comforting behaviors.

Main Methods:

• Observed mouse allogrooming behavior towards distressed partners.
• Utilized microendoscopic calcium imaging to monitor neural activity in the medial amygdala (MeA).
• Employed intersectional functional manipulations to establish causal links between MeA neurons and behavior.

Main Results:

• Mice exhibit increased allogrooming towards distressed conspecifics, even responding to olfactory cues.
• Neural activity in the MeA differentiates between naive and distressed individuals and correlates with allogrooming.
• A specific subpopulation of MeA GABAergic neurons expressing tachykinin was identified as crucial for promoting allogrooming via projections to the medial preoptic area.

Conclusions:

• Mice display prosocial comforting behavior through allogrooming.
• The medial amygdala (MeA) plays a critical role in the neural control of affiliative touch.
• This study reveals a specific neural circuit mechanism for encoding and executing prosocial touch.