Pro-social behavior in rats is modulated by social experience

Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal · David A. Rodgers · Maria Sol Bernardez Sarria · Jean Decety A · Peggy Mason

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Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior Animal Behavior and Reproduction Primate Behavior and Ecology

Abstract

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. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01385.001.

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1964The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I 2002Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases 1987The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors.2006Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees 1997Reinterpreting the empathy-altruism relationship: When one into one equals oneness.2003Variations in maternal care in the rat as a mediating influence for the effects of environment on development 2005Identity and Emergency Intervention: How Social Group Membership and Inclusiveness of Group Boundaries Shape Helping Behavior 2011Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats

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