Langford Dale J, Crager Sara E, Shehzad Zarrar, Smith Shad B, Sotocinal Susana G, Levenstadt Jeremy S, Chanda Mona Lisa, Levitin Daniel J, Mogil Jeffrey S
Department of Psychology and Centre for Research on Pain, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 1B1, Canada.
Science. 2006 Jun 30;312(5782):1967-70. doi: 10.1126/science.1128322.
Empathy is thought to be unique to higher primates, possibly to humans alone. We report the modulation of pain sensitivity in mice produced solely by exposure to their cagemates, but not to strangers, in pain. Mice tested in dyads and given an identical noxious stimulus displayed increased pain behaviors with statistically greater co-occurrence, effects dependent on visual observation. When familiar mice were given noxious stimuli of different intensities, their pain behavior was influenced by their neighbor's status bidirectionally. Finally, observation of a cagemate in pain altered pain sensitivity of an entirely different modality, suggesting that nociceptive mechanisms in general are sensitized.
同理心被认为是高等灵长类动物所独有的，可能仅为人类所特有。我们报告了仅通过暴露于处于疼痛状态的同笼伙伴（而非陌生人）而产生的小鼠疼痛敏感性的调节。在二元组中接受测试并给予相同有害刺激的小鼠表现出增加的疼痛行为，且在统计学上同时出现的情况更多，这些效应依赖于视觉观察。当熟悉的小鼠受到不同强度的有害刺激时，它们的疼痛行为会受到其邻居状态的双向影响。最后，观察到同笼伙伴处于疼痛状态会改变完全不同模式的疼痛敏感性，这表明一般的伤害感受机制会被致敏。
