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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Apr 24.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Neurosci. 2022 Oct 24;25(11):1505–1518. doi: 10.1038/s41593-022-01179-2

Figure 1. Mice prefer altruistic over selfish decisions.

Figure 1

a, Experimental design of the SDM. b, Decision preference score in mice tested in the SDM with recipient (orange) or no recipient (grey) (two-way RM ANOVA, group (with recipient, no recipient) x time (days 1-5), F(4, 116)=2.771, p=0.0305; the decision preference scores were found to fit a normal distribution across 5 days of testing, D’Agostino and Pearson normality test, ‘with recipient’, min K2=3.122, p=0.225, n=16; ‘no recipient’ min K2=0.944, p=0.623, n=15). Inset, altruistic responses on left (n=9) and right (n=7) nose pokes on day 1 (two-tailed unpaired t-test, t=3.37, d.f.=14, p=0.0046) and day 5 (t=0.79, d.f.=14, p=0.4419). c, Number of nose poke with recipient (n=16) and no recipient (n=15; two-way RM ANOVA, group (with recipient, no recipient) x response (nose poke 1, nose poke 2), F(1, 58)=6.877, p=0.0111). d, Change of preference in an additional session with recipient (R→R, n=10) or with a toy (R→T, n=10) (two-tailed unpaired t-test, t=2.24, d.f.=18, p=0.0374). e, Left, total number of mice grouped by preference and sex. Right, altruistic and selfish preferences in males and females. f, Data distribution of decision preference score in altruistic and selfish mice. g, Cumulative frequency distribution of decision preference scores (n=52). h, Left, social exploration of altruistic (orange, n=8) and selfish (blue, n=10) actors towards their recipients during SDM day 1 and 5 (two-way ANOVA, group (altruistic, selfish), F(1, 32)=16.29, p=0.0003). Right, Schematic of the testing chambers. i, Social exploration of recipients towards altruistic (orange, n=6) or selfish (blue, n=7) actors during SDM day 1 and 5 (two-way ANOVA, group (altruistic, selfish), F(1, 11)=0.16, p=0.6902;). j, Correlation between social exploration on day 1 and preference for altruistic choices on day 5 (linear regression, r=0.4890, p=0.039, n=18 pairs). k, Left, decision preference scores in mice tested with a metal mesh (orange, n=10), a transparent (light blue, n=8) or an opaque partition (grey, n=8) (two-way RM ANOVA, group (metal mesh, transparent partition, opaque partition) x time (days 1-5), F(8, 100)=2.037, p=0.0494). Right, individual curves representing decision preference score. *p<0.05, **p<0.01. n.s. not significant. Values are expressed as mean ± s.e.m.