RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Tickle contagion in the somatosensory cortex
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.10.22.465426
DO 10.1101/2021.10.22.465426
A1 Lena V. Kaufmann
A1 Michael Brecht
A1 Shimpei Ishiyama
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/10/24/2021.10.22.465426.abstract
AB 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 StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.