加州大学洪暐哲团队提出了亲社会和养育行为的共享神经基础。相关论文于2026年3月4日发表在《自然》杂志上。

研究人员发现，父母教养水平较高的老鼠对有压力的成年老鼠表现出更多的亲社会异质修饰。内侧视前区（MPOA）是一个涉及育儿行为的大脑区域，双向调节对应激的同种异体的异体修饰。异源修饰和养育行为在MPOA中需要部分重叠的神经元集合，两者都由MPOA到VTA通路控制，并与伏隔核中的多巴胺释放有关。使用活动依赖标签，课题组研究人员证明了在育儿行为中参与的MPOA神经元集合在功能上是异体修饰所必需的。相反，在亲社会行为中激活的MPOA神经元在功能上需要小狗的梳理。总的来说，这些发现揭示了亲社会行为的神经回路机制，并揭示了育儿和亲社会行为之间部分共享的神经基质，这表明为照顾后代而进化的神经系统可能为成人之间更广泛的亲社会支持的出现提供了支撑。

据了解，人类和动物可以感知到其他个体的消极状态，并以亲社会行为做出反应，以改善他们的状况。虽然亲社会行为被假设在照顾脆弱的新生儿时有进化的根源，但育儿背后的神经基质是否会对成人指导的亲社会行为起作用仍不清楚。

附：英文原文

Title: Shared neural substrates of prosocial and parenting behaviours

Author: Sun, Fangmiao, Lim, Kayla Y., Dang, James, Zhang, Li I., Wu, Ye Emily, Hong, Weizhe

Issue&Volume: 2026-03-04

Abstract: Humans and animals can sense the negative states of other individuals and respond with prosocial behaviour to improve their conditions1,2. Although prosocial behaviour is hypothesized to have an evolutionary root in caring for vulnerable newborn offspring1,3, whether the neural substrates underlying parenting may contribute to adult-directed prosocial behaviours remains largely unclear. We show that mice with higher levels of parenting exhibit more prosocial allogrooming toward stressed adults. The medial preoptic area (MPOA), a brain area involved in parenting behaviour, bidirectionally regulates allogrooming toward stressed conspecifics. Allogrooming and parenting behaviours recruit a partially overlapping neuronal ensemble in the MPOA, are both controlled by an MPOA–to–VTA pathway and are associated with dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Using activity-dependent labeling, we demonstrate that MPOA neuronal ensembles engaged during parenting behaviours are functionally required for allogrooming. Conversely, MPOA neurons activated during prosocial behaviour are functionally required for pup grooming. Collectively, these findings uncover a neural circuit mechanism of prosocial behaviour and reveal partially shared neural substrates between parenting and prosocial behaviours, suggesting that the neural systems evolved for offspring care may have provided a scaffold for the emergence of broader prosocial support between adults.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10327-8

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10327-8