TY - JOUR
T1 - Collective Emotional Contagion in Zebrafish
AU - Burbano Lombana, Daniel Alberto
AU - Macrì, Simone
AU - Porfiri, Maurizio
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2021 Burbano Lombana, Macrì and Porfiri.
PY - 2021/9/9
Y1 - 2021/9/9
N2 - Seeking to match our emotional state with one of those around us is known as emotional contagion-a fundamental biological process that underlies social behavior across several species and taxa. While emotional contagion has been traditionally considered to be a prerogative of mammals and birds, recent findings are demonstrating otherwise. Here, we investigate emotional contagion in groups of zebrafish, a freshwater model species which is gaining momentum in preclinical studies. Zebrafish have high genetic homology to humans, and they exhibit a complex behavioral repertoire amenable to study social behavior. To investigate whether individual emotional states can be transmitted to group members, we pharmacologically modulated anxiety-related behaviors of a single fish through Citalopram administration and we assessed whether the altered emotional state spread to a group of four untreated conspecifics. By capitalizing upon our in-house developed tracking algorithm, we successfully preserved the identity of all the subjects and thoroughly described their individual and social behavioral phenotypes. In accordance with our predictions, we observed that Citalopram administration consistently reduced behavioral anxiety of the treated individual, in the form of reduced geotaxis, and that such a behavioral pattern readily generalized to the untreated subjects. A transfer entropy analysis of causal interactions within the group revealed that emotional contagion was directional, whereby the treated individual influenced untreated subjects, but not vice-versa. This study offers additional evidence that emotional contagion is biologically preserved in simpler living organisms amenable to preclinical investigations.
AB - Seeking to match our emotional state with one of those around us is known as emotional contagion-a fundamental biological process that underlies social behavior across several species and taxa. While emotional contagion has been traditionally considered to be a prerogative of mammals and birds, recent findings are demonstrating otherwise. Here, we investigate emotional contagion in groups of zebrafish, a freshwater model species which is gaining momentum in preclinical studies. Zebrafish have high genetic homology to humans, and they exhibit a complex behavioral repertoire amenable to study social behavior. To investigate whether individual emotional states can be transmitted to group members, we pharmacologically modulated anxiety-related behaviors of a single fish through Citalopram administration and we assessed whether the altered emotional state spread to a group of four untreated conspecifics. By capitalizing upon our in-house developed tracking algorithm, we successfully preserved the identity of all the subjects and thoroughly described their individual and social behavioral phenotypes. In accordance with our predictions, we observed that Citalopram administration consistently reduced behavioral anxiety of the treated individual, in the form of reduced geotaxis, and that such a behavioral pattern readily generalized to the untreated subjects. A transfer entropy analysis of causal interactions within the group revealed that emotional contagion was directional, whereby the treated individual influenced untreated subjects, but not vice-versa. This study offers additional evidence that emotional contagion is biologically preserved in simpler living organisms amenable to preclinical investigations.
KW - Citalopram
KW - behavior
KW - empathy
KW - geotaxis
KW - transfer entropy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115656999&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85115656999&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.730372
DO - 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.730372
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85115656999
SN - 1662-5153
VL - 15
JO - Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
JF - Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
M1 - 730372
ER -