ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2022
Who's laughing? Play, tickling and ultrasonic vocalizations in rats.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Interrogating roles for VTA dopamine neurons in locomotion and ultrasonic vocalizations elicited by different classes of rewarding drugs.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Stage 2 Registered Report: Refinement of tickling protocols to improve positive animal welfare in laboratory rats.F1000Research · 2025Article
- Juvenile male rats form preferences based on strain when playing in groups but not in pairs.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- The ARCH model: a neuroevolutionary framework for behavioral execution.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Shaping behaviors through social experience and their proposed sensitivity to stress.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2024Review
- Play partner preferences among groups of unfamiliar juvenile male rats.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Disentangling developmental effects of play aspects in rat rough-and-tumble play.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Wildtype peers rescue social play and 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalization deficits in juvenile femaleFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Making a case for the free exploratory paradigm: animal welfare-friendly assays that enhance heterozygosity and ecological validity.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Laughter, play faces and mimicry in animals: evolution and social functions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Cracking the laugh code: laughter through the lens of biology, psychology and neuroscience.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Who's laughing? Play, tickling and ultrasonic vocalizations in rats.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Social play in rats is a highly rewarding, energetic form of social interaction and important for development of the brain and social skills. The 50 kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) emitted during social play are thought to be an expression of a positive affective state (laughter), which in some situations may also function as communication signals. Heterospecific play, 'tickling' by an experimenter, is thought to simulate conspecific play, and has been used to improve welfare and to study the neurobiology of positive affect. Given that tickling evokes substantial amounts of USV, we investigated whether heterospecific play is simulating conspecific play by comparing USV-behaviour associations in both contexts. If the 50 kHz calls are merely an expression of 'laughter' then the pattern and type of emission in both contexts should be similar. By contrast, as playing with a conspecific involves a two-way exchange of signalling, the additional demands on communication should lead to a different pattern of calling. While calling was prevalent in both types of play, how the different types of 50 kHz calls are used in the two contexts differed markedly. The findings suggest that while conspecific and heterospecific play are positive experiences, tickling is not the equivalent of conspecific play. This article is part of the theme issue 'Cracking the laugh code: laughter through the lens of biology, psychology and neuroscience'.
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