How do social experiences during adolescence promote empathetic, helpful behavior? New from eNeuro, Yi Zuo, from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and colleagues used mice to explore how social isolation at different stages of life influences the way mice sense the emotions of others and socialize.
Mice usually comfort stressed out peers by grooming them. But the researchers discovered that mice raised in social isolation did not perform this typical grooming behavior with their peers in adulthood, and these mice were unable to tell the difference between stressed and unstressed mice. These behavioral changes occurred as quickly as 2 weeks following social isolation and persisted even when mice were rehoused with peers. Socially isolating adult mice did not hinder their ability to discriminate between stressed and unstressed mice but did affect group grooming behavior.
According to the researchers, this work suggests that adolescence is an important time period for developing the ability to read others' emotions and socialize, at least in mice. Speaking on future research plans stemming from this work, Zuo expresses excitement at exploring the brain circuits underlying these behaviors with the end goal of targeting them to reverse the effects of social isolation.
