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- Evolutionarily conserved role of oxytocin in social fear contagion in zebrafishPublication . Akinrinade, Ibukun; Kareklas, Kyriacos; Teles, Magda C; Reis, Thais K.; Gliksberg, Michael; Petri, Giovanni; Levkowitz, Gil; Oliveira, Rui F.Emotional contagion is the most ancestral form of empathy. We tested to what extent the proximate mechanisms of emotional contagion are evolutionarily conserved by assessing the role of oxytocin, known to regulate empathic behaviors in mammals, in social fear contagion in zebrafish. Using oxytocin and oxytocin receptor mutants, we show that oxytocin is both necessary and sufficient for observer zebrafish to imitate the distressed behavior of conspecific demonstrators. The brain regions associated with emotional contagion in zebrafish are homologous to those involved in the same process in rodents (e.g., striatum, lateral septum), receiving direct projections from oxytocinergic neurons located in the pre-optic area. Together, our results support an evolutionary conserved role for oxytocin as a key regulator of basic empathic behaviors across vertebrates. Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved.
- Emotional contagion and prosocial behaviour in fish: An evolutionary and mechanistic approachPublication . Kareklas, Kyriacos; Oliveira, Rui F.In this review, we consider the definitions and experimental approaches to emotional contagion and prosocial behaviour in mammals and explore their evolutionary conceptualisation for studying their occurrence in the evolutionarily divergent vertebrate group of ray-finned fish. We present evidence for a diverse set of fish phenotypes that meet definitional criteria for prosocial behaviour and emotional contagion and discuss conserved mechanisms that may account for some preserved social capacities in fish. Finally, we provide some considerations on how to address the question of interdependency between emotional contagion and prosocial response, highlighting the importance of recognition processes, decision-making systems, and ecological context for providing evolutionary explanations.