Decisions in social contexts might lead to choices favoring self-or others-interest, depending on the relationships between individuals. Prosocial and helping behaviors are evolutionary conserved across mammals. However, the neurobiological bases of choices that bene t others at a personal cost are not understood. Here, we revealed the role of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in altruistic and sel sh choices.We developed a two-choice social decision-making task in which mice could decide to share or not a positive reinforcement with their conspeci cs. Preference for altruistic choices was more evident in males and if the conspeci c was familiar. In particular, altruistic choices were associated with social dominance and affective state matching between individuals. Chemogenetic BLA neuronal silencing induced lower ranking hierarchy and less preference for altruistic choices. This provides a neurobiological comparative model of altruistic and sel sh choices versus dominance hierarchy and emotional contagion, with relevance to pathologies associated with dysfunctions in social decision-making.

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Decisions in social contexts might lead to choices favoring self- or others-interest, depending on the relationships between individuals. Prosocial and helping behaviors are evolutionary conserved across mammals. However, the neurobiological bases of choices that benefit others at a personal cost are not understood. Here, we revealed the role of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in altruistic and selfish choices. We developed a two-choice social decision-making task in which mice could decide to share or not a positive reinforcement with their conspecifics. Preference for altruistic choices was more evident in males and if the conspecific was familiar. In particular, altruistic choices were associated with social dominance and affective state matching between individuals. Chemogenetic BLA neuronal silencing induced lower ranking hierarchy and less preference for altruistic choices. This provides a neurobiological comparative model of altruistic and selfish choices versus dominance hierarchy and emotional contagion, with relevance to pathologies associated with dysfunctions in social decision-making.

Social decision-making requires the ability to balance both the interests of the self and the interests of others to survive in social environments. Empathy is essential to the regulation of this type of interaction, and it often sustains relevant prosocial behaviors such as altruism and helping behavior. In the last decade, our capacity to assess affective and empathy-like behaviors in rodents has expanded our understanding of the neurobiological substrates that underly social decision-making processes such as prosocial behaviors. Within this context, oxytocinergic transmission is profoundly implicated in modulating some of the major components of social decision-making. Thus, this review will present evidence of the association between oxytocin and empathy-like and prosocial behaviors in nonhuman animals. Then, we will dissect the involvement of oxytocinergic transmission—across different brain regions and pathways—in some of the key elements of social decision-making such as emotional discrimination, social recognition, emotional contagion, social dominance, and social memory. Evidence of the modulatory role of oxytocin on social decision-making has raised considerable interest in its clinical relevance, therefore we will also discuss the controversial findings on intranasal oxytocin administration.

Route instructions used in wayfinding studies are usually taken to be perfect, but in real life we often receive erroneous or ambiguous instructions. The present study investigates wayfinding behavior under such inconsistent instructions in a virtual reality setting. We find that women are more accurate than men, and that wayfinders seem to be more a↵ected by incorrect landmark information than incorrect turn information.