Lichtenberg Article

Question 1

What is the paper topic?

Answer 1

Rat behaviour and dopamine release are modulated by conspecific distress

Question 2

What is the hypothesis?

Answer 2

Levels of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens correlate with prosocial behaviours, but are also correlated with behaviour when self-interest conflicts (subjective view) with harm to others (objective view)

Question 3

What were some of the methods?

Answer 3

Fast-Scan Cyclic Voltammetry (FSCV), Pavlovian social distress paradigm, Instrumental social distress paradigm

Question 4

What were some of the results?

Answer 4

Pavlovian Distress Paradigm: For the recording rat, cue onset resulted in increased DA release when predictive of reward, whereas cues predicting shock for recording rat was correlated with inhibited DA release. When shock was administered to the conspecific, the recording rat exhibited reduced suppression of DA release. The recording rat also did not freeze, but approached the conspecific. Instrumental Social Distress: The recording rat pressed significantly less and was slower to press the lever on conspecific-shock trials. It appeared that the decision to spare the conspecific resulted in a DA release equal to when the recording rat avoided shock

Question 5

What are the implications of these findings?

Answer 5

DA signals reflect prediction errors informed by social context, Value of saving oneself = saving conspecific (although rats more interested in sparing themselves vs. conspecific), rats can engage in prosocial behaviour and empathy