Lai Wen-Sung, Ramiro Leora-Leigh R, Yu Helena A, Johnston Robert E
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
J Neurosci. 2005 Dec 7;25(49):11239-47. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2124-05.2005.
The ability to recognize individuals is essential for many aspects of social interaction and social organization, yet we know relatively little about the neural mechanisms underlying this ability. Most laboratory studies of individual recognition in rodents have studied differential responses to familiar versus unfamiliar individuals rather than differential responses to equally well known individuals having different significance for the subject. In experiment 1, we use a new method for studying true individual recognition in which male hamsters first had different experiences with two stimulus males (exposures to one male across a wire-mesh barrier and fights with another male). One day later, losers of fights were tested in a Y-maze for reactions to one of the two familiar males. Subjects tested with the familiar winner avoided this stimulus male, but subjects tested with the familiar, neutral male were attracted to him. Immunohistochemistry for c-Fos and Egr-1 implicate several areas of the brain in individual recognition, particularly the anterior piriform cortex, the CA1 and CA3 regions of anterior dorsal hippocampus, anterior and posterior dentate gyrus, and perirhinal cortex. In experiment 2, temporary inactivation of the CA1 region of anterior dorsal hippocampus by microinfusion of lidocaine eliminated the avoidance of the familiar winner, but a saline control injection had no effect. These results are the first to use a rodent model to characterize neural circuits involved in the recognition of equally well known individuals and the corresponding emotional responses to them.
识别个体的能力对于社会互动和社会组织的许多方面至关重要，但我们对这种能力背后的神经机制了解相对较少。大多数关于啮齿动物个体识别的实验室研究都集中在对熟悉与不熟悉个体的差异反应上，而非对同样为主体所熟知但具有不同重要性的个体的差异反应。在实验1中，我们采用了一种研究真正个体识别的新方法，即雄性仓鼠首先与两只刺激雄性有不同的经历（通过铁丝网屏障接触一只雄性，与另一只雄性打架）。一天后，打架的失败者在Y迷宫中接受测试，以观察它们对两只熟悉雄性之一的反应。与熟悉的胜利者进行测试的受试者避开了这只刺激雄性，但与熟悉的中性雄性进行测试的受试者则被其吸引。对c-Fos和Egr-1进行免疫组织化学分析表明，大脑的几个区域参与了个体识别，特别是前梨状皮质、前背海马体的CA1和CA3区域、齿状回的前后部以及嗅周皮质。在实验2中，通过微量注射利多卡因暂时使前背海马体的CA1区域失活，消除了对熟悉胜利者的回避，但注射生理盐水的对照则没有效果。这些结果首次使用啮齿动物模型来表征参与识别同样为主体所熟知的个体以及对其相应情绪反应的神经回路。
