Rats Feel Each Other's Pain 200
sciencehabit writes "Empathy lets us feel another person's pain and drives us to help ease it. But is empathy a uniquely human trait? For decades researchers have debated whether nonhuman animals possess this attribute. Now a new study shows that rats will free a trapped cagemate in distress. The results mean that these rodents can be used to help determine the genetic and physiological underpinnings of empathy in people."
Not surprised (Score:4, Informative)
interesting study, but not completely new (Score:4, Informative)
This study adds useful new information, but it's not the first finding of animals exhibiting what's sometimes called "directed altruism", helping another animal in response to what appears to be communication of emotional state. Even Darwin remarked that "many animals certainly sympathize with each other’s distress or
danger", though of course his evidence for that claim wasn't up to modern standards.
Here's [umd.edu] an interesting review from 2008.
Unnecessarily complicated experiment (Score:3, Informative)
rats have empathy? (Score:5, Informative)
when you place an unconscious rat in a cage with conscious rats, the first thing they do is run over and eat the unconscious rats eyes out.
i know this from first hand experience. watching it happen, while doing research as an undergrad. i was horrified. the postdoc looked over and was like "oh yeah, that's why we always separate them after giving them an injection to give them time to wake up. did i forget to tell you that part?"
rats and other rodents also never act sick. ever. even if they have a broken leg or severe infection, they'll continue acting like normal rats, for fear (i assume?) that the second they show any kind of weakness, the other rats will gang up on them and eat them.
Hmmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
You don't need an experiment to figure it out, but you need an experiment to confirm it.
Re:"Empathy Tests" (Score:5, Informative)