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Our appreciation of our material well-being and our status in society is largely determined by our assessment of others. However, the neurological underpinnings of how we monitor the complex social environment under conditions of limited access to resources and whether we are happy or disappointed remain unclear.
In a new study reported in the review Neuroscience of natureResearchers at the Department of Systems Neuroscience, National Institute of Physiological Sciences, have shed light on the excitement of envy by performing brain scans of macaques in situations where they or a partner macaque receive a reward.
Their results reveal a specific region of the brain associated with a reduction in the amount that macaques enjoy receiving a reward themselves, depending on whether or not their partner has received it.
In this elegant work, the team placed pairs of macaques in front of each other and provided them with sips of water in combination with visual and sound stimulations, possibly conditioning them to associate them.
The researchers measured lip licking as an indicator of the value of their own rewards, including when their partner was rewarded. They also analyzed the macaque's look to confirm that the provision of a reward to a macaque had been noted by his partner. Finally, they measured the activity of parts of the brain known to be related to reward processing.
The results showed that macaques valued their own rewards less when their partner macaques were rewarded, even if their own rewards remained unchanged. This revealed the subjective assessment of one's own rewards based on the social context.
The team found this to be reasonable because in the natural world where individuals compete for limited resources, and when a peer earns resources, it automatically means fewer resources are available for oneself .
"We confirmed the behavioral and neurological results by repeating the experiment when a paired macaque was present but did not receive sips of water as a reward, and when it did not. water was introduced into a bucket rather than another macaque, "said Masaki Isoda. author. "In these cases, the signs of envy were not exposed."
The team also studied the parts of the brain involved in the observed craving and the active pathways between them.
"By measuring the activation times of the different regions in the envy-related scenario, it was shown that the pathway involved the flow of information from the medial prefrontal cortex to the middle brain," he said. said Atsushi Noritake, lead author.
Given the similarity between macaques and humans, the results could be extrapolated to humans, with far-reaching implications in areas as diverse as the treatment of behavioral diseases, the economy, human resources, and advertising. .
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