Empathy as a 'Danger Antenna' in Rats

AnimalsBiologyEvolutionNeurosciencePsychology
Written By maryb
Photo: Alexey Krasavin, via Flickr. Distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

Photo: Alexey Krasavin, via Flickr. Distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

Rats are social animals, exquisitely attuned to the emotions of the rats around them. In a new study published in PLoS Biology, researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience show that rats may use this sense of empathy as a way to gauge danger.

Read the whole story at my Animal Minds blog: Empathy as a 'Danger Antenna' in Rats.

maryb
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