ArticleiScience2022
Tickle contagion in the rat somatosensory cortex.
Article in iScience, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Novel Cooperative Behavior Assay in Rats Reveals Distinct Social Coordination Strategies of Increasing Complexity and Social Reciprocity Deficits in a Model of Fragile X Syndrome.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Shaping behaviors through social experience and their proposed sensitivity to stress.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2024Review
- Effect of lite touch on the anxiety of low-risk pregnant women in the latent phase of childbirth: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Sharing Positive Affective States Amongst Rodents.Affective science · 2023Review
- Sex differences in 50 kHz call subtypes emitted during tickling-induced playful behaviour in rats.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Unsupervised discovery of behaviorally relevant brain states in rats playing hide-and-seek.Current biology : CB · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
The cellular mechanisms of emotional contagion are unknown. We investigated tickle contagion and the underlying neuronal representations in playful rats. We recorded trunk somatosensory cortex activity of observer rats while they received tickling and audiovisual playback of tickling footage and while they witnessed tickling of demonstrator rats. Observers vocalized and showed "Freudensprünge" ("joy jumps") during witnessing live tickling, while they showed little behavioral responses to playbacks. Deep layers in the trunk somatosensory neurons showed a larger correlation between direct and witnessed tickling responses compared to superficial layers. Trunk somatosensory neurons discharged upon emission of own and demonstrator's vocalizations and might drive contagious "laughter". We conclude that trunk somatosensory cortex might represent ticklishness contagion.
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Registered trials
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