2025/02/20 by Wenjian Sun, Guangwei Zhang, Junxiang Huang +4 · 2 voices · 1 citation
Psychology · Neuroscience · #Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior #Neuroscience of respiration and sleep #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
paper · doi:10.1126/science.adq2677
openalex publication_date 2025/02/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Whereas humans exhibit emergency responses to assist unconscious individuals, how nonhuman animals react to unresponsive conspecifics is less well understood. We report that mice exhibit stereotypic behaviors toward unconscious or dead social partners, which escalate from sniffing and grooming to more forceful actions such as mouth or tongue biting and tongue pulling. The latter intense actions, more prominent in familiar pairs, begin after prolonged immobility and unresponsiveness and cease when the partner regains activity. Their consequences, including improved airway opening and clearance and accelerated recovery from unconsciousness, suggest rescue-like efforts. Oxytocin neurons in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus respond differentially to the presence of unconscious versus active partners, and their activation, along with oxytocin signaling, is required for the reviving-like actions. This tendency to assist unresponsive members may enhance group cohesion and survival of social species.