Neural control of affiliative touch in prosocial interaction.

ABSTRACT: The ability to help and care for others fosters social cohesiveness and is vital to the physical and emotional well-being of social species, including humans^1-3. Affiliative social touch, such as allogrooming (grooming behaviour directed towards another individual), is a major type of prosocial behaviour that provides comfort to others^1-6. Affiliative touch serves to establish and strengthen social bonds between animals and can help to console distressed conspecifics. However, the neural circuits that promote prosocial affiliative touch have remained unclear. Here we show that mice exhibit affiliative allogrooming behaviour towards distressed partners, providing a consoling effect. The increase in allogrooming occurs in response to different types of stressors and can

SUBMITTER: Wu YE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8605624 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature