Affective mirror and anti-mirror neurons relate to prosocial help in rats

Wen-Yi Wu; Yawei Cheng; Keng-Chen Liang; Ray X Lee; Chen-Tung Yen

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105865

Affective mirror and anti-mirror neurons relate to prosocial help in rats

iScience. 2022 Dec 23;26(1):105865. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105865. eCollection 2023 Jan 20.

Authors

Wen-Yi Wu¹, Yawei Cheng², Keng-Chen Liang^{3

4}, Ray X Lee^{5

6}, Chen-Tung Yen^{7

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.
² Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei 112304, Taiwan.
³ Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
⁴ Neurobiology and Cognitive Science Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 Vassar St, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
⁶ Program in Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
⁷ Department of Life Science, National Taiwan University, 1 Roosevelt Road Sec. 4, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.

Abstract

Although empathic emotion is closely related to prosocial behavior, neuronal substrate that accounts for empathy-associated prosocial action remains poorly understood. We recorded neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insular cortex (InC) in rats when they observed another rat in pain. We discovered neurons with anti-mirror properties in the ACC and InC, in addition to those with mirror properties. ACC neurons show higher coupling between activation of self-in-pain and others-in-pain, whereas the InC has a higher ratio of neurons with anti-mirror properties. During others-in-pain, ACC neurons activated more when actively nose-poking toward others and InC neurons activated more when freezing. To further illustrate prosocial function, we examined neuronal activities in the helping behavior test. Both ACC and InC neurons showed specific activation to rat rescuing which is contributed by mirror, but not anti-mirror neurons. Our work indicates the functional involvement of mirror neuron system in prosocial behaviors.

Keywords: Behavioral neuroscience; Cellular neuroscience; Molecular neuroscience.