RESEARCH AREAS
Social interactions between individuals and among groups are a hallmark of human society and are critical to the physical and mental health of a wide variety of species including humans. The central goal of our lab is to investigate the fundamental principles underlying the regulation of social behavior in both biological and artificial intelligence systems, with a focus on empathy and prosociality. We study how neural circuits and the underlying computation regulate social behavioral decisions within a single brain, as well as how emergent inter-brain neural properties arise from social interactions between individuals. We take a multi-disciplinary approach and use a variety of experimental and computational technologies across molecular, circuit, and behavioral levels.
Review: Chen & Hong. Neural circuit mechanisms of social behavior. Neuron 2018.
Review: Chen & Hong. Neural circuit mechanisms of social behavior. Neuron 2018.
1. The neuroscience of empathy, compassion, and prosocial behavior
While it is evolutionarily logical for individuals to behave in ways that benefit themselves and maximize an individual’s own survival and reproduction, humans and other animals also exhibit empathy and compassion-related behaviors that benefit others. Our research aims to understand various forms of empathy-related prosocial behaviors and the underlying neural mechanisms. We were among the first to demonstrate that mice display comforting behavior to reduce other’s emotional distress (Wu et al. 2021 Nature), targeted helping behavior to attend to others' injuries or pain (Zhang et al. 2024 Nature), and rescue-like behavior to facilitate the recovery of an responsive animal (Sun et al. 2025 Science). Using these paradigms, combined with molecular genetics and computational approaches, we have identified the molecularly and anatomically defined neural pathways in the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex that specifically encode and control these behaviors.
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Review: Wu & Hong. Neural basis of prosocial behavior. Trends in Neurosciences 2022 Neural mechanism of rescue-like behavior Sun et al. A neural basis for prosocial behavior toward unresponsive individuals. Science 2025 Neural mechanism of helping behavior Zhang et al. Cortical regulation of helping behavior towards others in pain. Nature 2024 Neural mechanism of comforting behavior Wu et al. Neural control of affiliative touch in prosocial interaction. Nature 2021 |
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2. A multi-brain framework for social interaction
Social interaction can be seen as a dynamic feedback loop that couples two or more high-dimension neural networks (i.e. brains). A fuller understanding of the social brain requires a description of how the neural dynamics are coupled across brains and how they coevolve over time. We study social decisions and emergent inter-brain neural properties in a multi-brain framework that considers social interaction as an integrated network of neural systems. By recording from two interacting animals at the same time, we were among the first to show that animals display inter-brain neural correlation between interacting individuals (Kingsbury et al. 2019 Cell). This work constitutes the first observation of interbrain synchrony in rodents, uncovers how synchronization arises from activity at the single-cell level, and presents a role for interbrain neural activity coupling as a property of multi-animal systems in coordinating and sustaining social interactions between individuals.
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Review: Kingsbury & Hong. A multi-brain framework for social interaction. Trends in Neurosciences 2020 Inter-brain neural synchrony across brains of socially interacting animals Kingsbury et al. Correlated neural activity and encoding of behavior across brains of socially interacting animals. Cell 2019 |
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3. Neural mechanisms of social information processing and social decision-making
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Social interactions involve the active detection of various social cues and the selection of appropriate behavioral decisions. We are interested in studying (1) how social sensory information is processed and integrated in the brain and (2) how different social behavioral decisions are selected and modulated by neural circuits.
Social reward and social motivation
Hu et al. An amygdala-to-hypothalamus circuit for social reward Nature Neuroscience 2021 |
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Representation of social information in the brain
Kingsbury et al. Cortical representations of conspecific sex shape social behavior Neuron 2020
Sexually dimorphic control of social behavior
Chen et al. Sexually dimorphic control of parenting behavior by the medial amygdala. Cell 2019
Neural mechanisms of aggressive behavior
Hong et al. Antagonistic control of social versus repetitive self-grooming behaviors by separable amygdala neuronal subsets. Cell 2014
Kingsbury et al. Cortical representations of conspecific sex shape social behavior Neuron 2020
Sexually dimorphic control of social behavior
Chen et al. Sexually dimorphic control of parenting behavior by the medial amygdala. Cell 2019
Neural mechanisms of aggressive behavior
Hong et al. Antagonistic control of social versus repetitive self-grooming behaviors by separable amygdala neuronal subsets. Cell 2014
4. New molecular and behavioral technologies for studying social behavior
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Act-seq: a single-cell sequencing approach to identify active neuronal populations
Wu et al. Detecting Activated Cell Populations Using Single-Cell RNA-Seq. Neuron 2017 Using depth sensing and machine learning to track and analyze social behavior Hong et al. Automated Measurement of Mouse Social Behaviors Using Depth Sensing, Video Tracking, and Machine Learning. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 2015 |
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