Prosocial Behavior Lab
Our research focuses on unraveling the neural mechanisms underlying animals’ abilities to perceive and share others’ emotional states and to respond with actions that improve others’ well-being (prosocial behaviors). Our recent work has established paradigms of prosocial comforting and helping behaviors in laboratory mice and has identified key brain areas encoding and controlling these behaviors. We continue to explore the neural circuit and neural computational mechanisms of empathy-related prosocial behavior by integrating a variety of approaches including in vivo calcium imaging, functional manipulation, single-cell transcriptomics, and machine learning.
Neural computational and neural circuit mechanisms underlying prosocial interaction
The occurrence of prosocial behavior entails the perception of others’ affective states and the integration of self- and other-regarding information to guide behavioral decisions. The neural computations implemented in different brain areas that underlie these processes remain poorly understood. We employ in vivo calcium imaging to reveal how the affective states of self and others and prosocial behavioral decisions are differentially represented across various brain regions. We further apply functional manipulations to identify specific neuronal ensembles and neural connections that causally control prosocial behavior.
Advance technologies for automatic and quantitative analysis of prosocial interaction
Accurate and quantitative behavior analysis is crucial for the study of complex social interactions and for neuroscience in general. Utilizing deep neural networks, we have recently developed a novel framework for automatic behavior recognition by extensively capturing behaviorally relevant spatiotemporal features. We aim to further optimize this approach and integrate it with additional modalities, inclduing ultrasonic vocalization recordings and physiological measurements. Utilizing these tools, we will explore the neural and physiological mechanisms underlying the long-term impacts and regulation of prosocial interactions.
Neural mechanisms underlying deficits in empathy and prosocial behavior in neuropsychiatric disorders
Impairment in social affective processing and social interaction is a hallmark of a range of neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), personality disorders, and affective and anxiety disorders. How empathic and prosocial capacities may be impaired in these conditions and the underlying neural mechanisms remain largely unexplored. By integrating behavioral analysis, single-cell transcriptomics, functional manipulation, and in vivo calcium imaging, we will investigate the potential disruption of empathic and prosocial processes across behavioral, molecular, cellular, and neural circuitry levels in mouse models of ASD and other psychiatric conditions.
