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Serotonin release in the habenula during emotional contagion promotes resilience

Affiliations
  • 1The Department of Fundamental Neuroscience, The University of Lausanne, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • 2The Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, The University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
  • 3State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
  • 4Inserm, UMR-S 839, 75005 Paris, France.

Published on:

September 5, 2024

Abstract

Negative emotional contagion-witnessing others in distress-affects an individual’s emotional responsivity. However, whether it shapes coping strategies when facing future threats remains unknown. We found that mice that briefly observe a conspecific being harmed become resilient, withstanding behavioral despair after an adverse experience. Photometric recordings during negative emotional contagion revealed increased serotonin (5-HT) release in the lateral habenula. Whereas 5-HT and emotional contagion reduced habenular burst firing, limiting 5-HT synthesis prevented burst plasticity. Enhancing raphe-to-habenula 5-HT was sufficient to recapitulate resilience. In contrast, reducing 5-HT release in the habenula made witnessing a conspecific in distress ineffective to promote the resilient phenotype after adversity. These findings reveal that 5-HT supports vicarious emotions and leads to resilience by tuning definite patterns of habenular neuronal activity.

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