Empathy, crucial for social interaction, is impaired across various neuropsychiatric conditions. However, the genetic and neural underpinnings of empathy variability remain elusive. By combining forward genetic mapping with transcriptome analysis, we discover that aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator 2 (ARNT2) is a key driver modulating observational fear, a basic form of affective empathy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpatiotemporal control of brain activity by optogenetics has emerged as an essential tool to study brain function. For silencing brain activity, optogenetic probes, such as halorhodopsin and archaerhodopsin, inhibit transmitter release indirectly by hyperpolarizing membrane potentials. However, these probes cause an undesirable ionic imbalance and rebound spikes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmpathy enables social mammals to recognize and share emotion with others and is well-documented in non-human primates. During the past few years, systematic observations have showed that a primal form of empathy also exists in rodents, indicating that empathy has an evolutionary continuity. Now, using rodents exhibiting emotional empathy, the molecular and cellular study of empathy in animals has begun in earnest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmpathy is crucial for our emotional experience and social interactions, and its abnormalities manifest in various psychiatric disorders. Observational fear is a useful behavioral paradigm for assessing affective empathy in rodents. However, specific genes that regulate observational fear remain unknown.
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