Exploring the evolutionary origins of social behavior toward death in eusocial naked mole-rats

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project Area: Neural representation of "Death"
• Project/Area Number: 21H05143
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Review Section: Transformative Research Areas, Section (III)
• Research Institution: Kumamoto University
• Principal Investigator: Miura Kyoko 熊本大学, 大学院生命科学研究部(医), 教授 (80583062)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-08-23 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: ハダカデバネズミ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, as a novel behavioral assay system for quantifying social behavior toward death in a eusocial mammal, the naked mole-rat, we developed a tracking system that comprehensively and automatically records location information of all individuals in a group using an RFID technique. Furthermore, we have established a system to analyze the behavioral type of each individual in a group and the behavioral synchronization network among individuals based on the large-scale behavioral data acquired by the tracking system, and clarified behavioral individual differences and inter-individual relationships in a typical group of the naked mole-rat.

Free Research Field

分子生物学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究で開発したハダカデバネズミにおける大規模行動解析系によって、群れ内の行動を個体レベル・集団レベルで効率的に定量化することが可能になり、真社会性哺乳類における死の応答の網羅的解析に関する研究を遂行することができるようになった。また、この系は汎用性・拡張性が高く、死の応答のみならず様々な摂動に対する群れの応答を調べることが容易になり、真社会性哺乳類の社会性関連研究を加速させることが期待される。