Neuronal Correlates of Empathy: From Rodent to Human

Neuronal Correlates of Empathy: From Rodent to Human explores the neurobiology behind emotional contagion, compassionate behaviors and the similarities in rodents and human and non-human primates. The book provides clear and accessible information that avoids anthropomorphisms, reviews the latest research from the literature, and is essential reading for neuroscientists and others studying behavior, emotion and empathy impairments, both in basic research and preclinical studies. Though empathy is still considered by many to be a uniquely human trait, growing evidence suggests that it is present in other species, and that rodents, non-human primates, and humans share similarities.

Examines the continuum of behavioral and neurobiological responses between rodents—including laboratory rodents and monogamic species—and humansContains coverage of humans, non-human primates, and the emerging area of rodent studiesExplores the possibility of an integrated neurocircuitry for empathy

1. Introduction– empathy beyond semantics 2. The Vicarious Brain: Integrating Empathy and Emotional Learning 3. The neural bases of empathy in humans 4. Vicarious activations: our current understanding of the neural correlates of human empathy, its limitations and how rodent neuroscience is critical for further progress 5. Ethological Approaches to Empathy in Primates 6. Mirror mechanism and embodied emotions 7. The Neurobiological Influence of Stress in the Vole Pair Bond 8. The Social Transmission of Associative Fear in Rodents – Individual Differences in Fear Conditioning by Proxy 9. Neuronal correlates of remote fear learning in rats 10. Feeling others' pain: Affective communication in rodent models 11. Relief provided by conspecifics: social buffering 12. Helping behavior in rats 13. Reconstructing empathy from the bottom-up with rodent models of shared affect 14. Lack of empathy – mouse models 15. Future directions in empathy studies