The DOI matches its Crossref record; 85 of the 86 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Rodent empathy and affective neuroscience
Open accessAbstract
In the past few years, several experimental studies have suggested that empathy occurs in the social lives of rodents. Thus, rodent behavioral models can now be developed to elucidate the mechanistic substrates of empathy at levels that have heretofore been unavailable. For example, the finding that mice from certain inbred strains express behavioral and physiological responses to conspecific distress, while others do not, underscores that the genetic underpinnings of empathy are specifiable and that they could be harnessed to develop new therapies for human psychosocial impairments. However, the advent of rodent models of empathy is met at the outset with a number of theoretical and semantic problems that are similar to those previously confronted by studies of empathy in humans. The distinct underlying components of empathy must be differentiated from one another and from lay usage of the term. The primary goal of this paper is to review a set of seminal studies that are directly relevant to developing a concept of empathy in rodents. We first consider some of the psychological phenomena that have been associated with empathy, and within this context, we consider the component processes, or endophenotypes of rodent empathy. We then review a series of recent experimental studies that demonstrate the capability of rodents to detect and respond to the affective state of their social partners. We focus primarily on experiments that examine how rodents share affective experiences of fear, but we also highlight how similar types of experimental paradigms can be utilized to evaluate the possibility that rodents share positive affective experiences. Taken together, these studies were inspired by Jaak Panksepp's theory that all mammals are capable of felt affective experiences.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“While once thought to be a purely human capability, rodents are able to perceive the affective state of conspecifics as evidenced by, for example, the phenomenon of emotional contagion, during which perceiving a behavioral change in one individual reflexively elicits a similar state in the observer [88].”
From Neural circuits regulating prosocial behaviors (2023) · cites this paper as [88]
In the citing paper
“Multiple sensory modalities are implicated in mediating the social transfer of pain, with both the assay and species under investigation critically determining the dominant modality [88,89].”
From Neural circuits regulating prosocial behaviors (2023) · cites this paper as [88]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
The expression of the emotions in man and animals.
Darwin, C. D. (1872) · J. Murray eBooks · doi:10.1037/10001-000 · Cited by 12,120
A Handbook of Child Psychology
(1932) · Nature · doi:10.1038/130331a0 · Cited by 10,133
LeDoux, J. E. (2000) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.23.1.155 · Cited by 8,444
Wimmer, H. (1983) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/0010-0277(83)90004-5 · Cited by 6,305
Empathy: its ultimate and proximate bases
Preston, S. D., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2002) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x02000018 · Cited by 4,126
(1998) · Cited by 4,012
Self-citationEmpathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain
Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1093535 · Cited by 3,929
The functional architecture of human empathy
Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004) · Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews · doi:10.1177/1534582304267187 · Cited by 3,407 · cited 1×
“Modern theoretical developments in empathy research have centered on an approach that views the expression of empathy as the result of an interaction between several component processes, both affective and cognitive (Hoffman, 1987; Preston and de Waal, 2002; Decety and Jackson, 2004).”
BackgroundPutting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy
de Waal, F. B. M. (2008) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093625 · Cited by 2,483 · cited 1×
“Prompted in part by the research and writings of primatologist Franz de Waal, more principled and evolutionary based perspectives on empathy have emerged (de Waal, 2008).”
BackgroundEmpathy: A Social Psychological Approach
Davis, M. H. (1994) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.34-2454 · Cited by 2,442
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Lipps, 1903, Einfühlung, innere Nachahmung, und Organepfindungen, Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie, 1, 185
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 201–223 of 223
The Role of Animal Models in Developmental Brain Research
Halliwell, C. (2017) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-804036-2.00004-2
Carmona, I. M., de Oliveira, P. E. C., Baptista‐de‐Souza, D., & Canto‐de‐Souza, A. (2021) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2021.12.16.472930
Comunicação como ferramenta para o comportamento pró-social em cães
Generoso, C. (2021) · Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (Universidade de São Paulo) · doi:10.11606/d.47.2021.tde-14022022-181146 · Cited by 1
Miczek, K. A., & Covington, H. E. (2019) · Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature · doi:10.3410/f.733162596.793561606
Rajagopal, N. A. (2021) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-77083-9_1
(2017) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-805070-5.16001-1
Vicarious Stress in Juvenile Rats
Ali, E. (2022) · Carleton University's Institutional Repository (MacOdrum Library, Carleton University) · doi:10.22215/etd/2022-15177
Gaspar, A., & Carvalho, C. (2022) · Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research · doi:10.1163/25889567-bja10032
How naïve is your naïve subject? The behavior of rodents under a social lensPreprint
de la Fuente, V. (2023) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/3mjnt
The role of different sensory channels in stress contagion and its neural mechanisms
Rong, Z., 绪的影响, 不., Libinuer·aierken, K., 同时, 。., & Jun, G. (2023) · Advances in Psychological Science · doi:10.3724/sp.j.1042.2023.02142
Efectos de la Administración del Clonazepam en la Conducta de Ayuda de Roedores Mus musculus
Molina, A., Daza, M. M., & Roth, E. (2023) · Ajayu Órgano de Difusión Científica del Departamento de Psicología UCBSP · doi:10.35319/ajayu.212213
Sato, N. (2023) · JAPANESE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON EMOTIONS · doi:10.4092/jsre.30.3_61
Social context as a source of variability in the psychological sciences
Agee, L. A., Fourtassi, A., & Monfils, M. (2025) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2024.1507010
The extraterrestrial hypothesis: an epistemological case for removing the taboo
Lane, W. C. (2025) · European Journal for Philosophy of Science · doi:10.1007/s13194-025-00634-8 · Cited by 1
The Biological Evolution of Ingroup Love
Karandashev, V. N. (2026) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-14279-5_6
Łapiński, S., Niedbała, P., Rutkowska, A., & Marcin Wojciech, L. I. S. (2026) · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2026.107104
Intersections Among Attachment, Empathy and Emotion Regulation in Middle Childhood
Pires, E., Fernandes, M., Fernandes, C. C., dos Santos, A. J., Vaughn, B. E., & Veríssimo, M. (2026) · International Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1002/ijop.70257
Metadata
- Authors
- Panksepp, J. B., & Lahvis, G. P.
- Affiliations
- Oregon Health & Science University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Panksepp, Jules B.
- Lahvis, Garet P.
- ORCID
- Lahvis, Garet P.
- Venue
- Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-10
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1864-1875
- ISSN
- 0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3183383
- OpenAlex
- W2002401366
- Cited by
- 224
- References
- 86
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 1.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R03HD046716)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- empathy, rodents, affective neuroscience, inbred mouse strains, endophenotypes, positive affective states, Panksepp
- MeSH terms
- Affect, Animals, Empathy, Fear, Interpersonal Relations, Neurosciences, Pain, Rodentia, Social Behavior, Social Environment, Mice, Rats
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
