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Tickle contagion in the somatosensory cortex

View ORCID ProfileLena V. Kaufmann, Michael Brecht, View ORCID ProfileShimpei Ishiyama
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.22.465426
Lena V. Kaufmann
1Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Institut für Biologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Philippstraße 13, Haus 6, 10115 Berlin, Germany
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Michael Brecht
1Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Institut für Biologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Philippstraße 13, Haus 6, 10115 Berlin, Germany
2NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
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Shimpei Ishiyama
1Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Institut für Biologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Philippstraße 13, Haus 6, 10115 Berlin, Germany
3Institut für Pathophysiologie, Universitätsmedizin der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Duesbergweg 6, 55128 Mainz, Germany
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  • For correspondence: shimpei.ishiyama@uni-mainz.de
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Abstract

The cellular mechanisms of emotional contagion are unknown. We investigated tickle contagion and the underlying neuronal representations in rats. We recorded trunk somatosensory cortex activity of observer rats while they received tickling, audio-visual playback of tickling footage, and while they witnessed tickling of demonstrator rats. Observers vocalized, and showed “Freudensprünge” (“joy jumps”) during witnessing live tickling, while they showed little behavioral responses to playbacks. A fraction of trunk somatosensory neurons responded to both direct and witnessed tickling in action-specific manner. The correlation between direct and witnessed tickling responses increased towards deeper cortical layers. Tickle-mirror neurons but not non-mirror neurons discharged prior to and during vocalizations and hence might drive contagious ‘laughter’. We conclude that trunk somatosensory cortex represents mirrored ticklishness.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 24, 2021.
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Tickle contagion in the somatosensory cortex
Lena V. Kaufmann, Michael Brecht, Shimpei Ishiyama
bioRxiv 2021.10.22.465426; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.22.465426
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Tickle contagion in the somatosensory cortex
Lena V. Kaufmann, Michael Brecht, Shimpei Ishiyama
bioRxiv 2021.10.22.465426; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.22.465426

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