Rats will help other rats out of an uncomfortable situation, according to recent research from Kwansei Gakuin University (Nishinomiya, Japan). Researchers led by Nobuya Sato placed rats in a series of scenarios to determine how they respond to a cagemate in distress (Anim. Cogn. 10.1007/s10071-015-0872-2; published online 12 May 2015). Each scenario involved a pool of water separated from a dry chamber by a transparent wall with a door just above water level that could be opened from the opposite side with a small effort. When the pool was unoccupied, rats placed in the dry chamber showed little interest in opening the door, but most opened the door very quickly when their cagemate was in the pool (supplementary video accompanies the paper online; http://bit.ly/1PvuTZg).
Intriguingly, rats that had previously been placed in the pool themselves began to open the door more quickly than did rats that had not been placed in the pool themselves. “Our findings suggest that rats can behave prosocially and that helper rats may be motivated by empathy-like feelings towards their distressed cagemate,” Sato said in a press release. Such empathetic behavior hints at a broader range of cognitive abilities than has historically been attributed to rats. GDL
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