The Neuroscience of Prosocial Behavior: From Helping and Cooperation to Social AI

Prosocial behavior—actions that benefit others—represents one of the most evolutionarily puzzling yet critically important aspects of social life. Unlike other behaviors that primarily serve direct self-interest, prosocial behaviors appear to contradict basic evolutionary principles by directing effort and resources toward helping others, often at one’s own cost. This paradox makes prosocial behavior both fascinating from a scientific perspective and profoundly understudied compared to self-serving behaviors. We investigate the fundamental neural mechanisms underlying prosocial behavior, with a focus on empathy, helping, and cooperation. Using a multidisciplinary approach that integrates behavioral paradigms with genetic, circuit-level, and computational tools, we demonstrate that mice exhibit multiple forms of prosocial behaviors, including comforting, targeted helping behavior, rescue-like behavior, and cooperation. Using these behavioral models, we identify key neural pathways in the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex that specifically encode and control these behaviors. In addition to mechanisms within a single brain, we demonstrate that animals exhibit inter-brain neural correlations between interacting individuals.  Beyond biological systems, our research further extends to understanding emergent social behaviors among artificial intelligence systems, identifying fundamental and generalizable features of interacting neural systems present in both biological and artificial agents.

Dr. Weizhe Hong is a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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