Monique L Smith

Host: Valeria Gazzola
Group leader Social Brain lab Email: v.gazzola@nin.knaw.nl

Guest speaker: Monique L Smith
Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion Professor Assistant Professor of Neurobiology and Neurosciences. Email: moniquesmith@ucsd.edu

Title: Neural and Behavioral Mechanisms of Emapthy.

Abstract:

Social factors can dramatically influence our sensory and perceptual experience, yet very little is known about how the social environment directly alters physiological and emotional states. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, and induces changes in emotional and physiological states. Empathy has historically been considered a process unique to humans, leading to a limited number of studies in laboratory animal models. Recently, we and others have established that many species, including rodents, display various functionally integrated, yet distinguishable forms of empathy. With our well- validated “social transfer” model of empathy in the mouse, we see that bystander (BY) micerapidly adopt the sensory and emotional state of a social partner, and demonstrate pro social allogrooming behavior toward partners in pain. This assay allows for the mechanistic investigation of state matching and consolation behaviors, which are key components of empathy. The social transfer of pain requires the similar brain regions necessary for empathy in humans, including the anterior cingulate cortex. Additionally, serotonin and oxytocin are key modulators of these behaviors and can be used to restore dysregulated empathy behaviors. These studies are critical, since elucidating circuit-specific mechanisms that mediate various forms of empathy in experimentally accessible animal models is necessary for generating hypotheses that can be evaluated in human subjects using noninvasive assays. More sophisticated understanding of evolutionarily conserved brain mechanisms of empathy will also expedite the development of new therapies for the empathy-related deficits associated with a broad range of neuropsychiatric disorders.