The DOI matches its Crossref record, with a small difference in title or year; 71 of the 71 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Behavioral and mechanistic insight into rodent empathy
Abstract
Empathy is a psychological construct that allows individuals to understand and share the emotions of others. The ability to share emotional states relies on basic social mechanisms, such as mimicry and emotional contagion, which are considered building blocks for empathy. Mimicking another's emotional or physical state is essential for successful social interactions and is found in a number of animal species. For the current review we focus on emotional state sharing in rodents, a core feature of empathy that is often measured using pain and fear as proxies; we also discuss prosociality in rodents. The evidence for empathy in rodents shows that rats and mice consistently imitate arousal states and behaviors of conspecifics and will even sacrifice personal gain to relieve the distress of a conspecific. These behaviors support basic processes that are crucial for the survival of individual animals and give us insight into the neural mechanisms that govern empathy-related behaviors.
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“contagion is fast, automatic and is shared by most vertebrates, cognitive empathy has been related to primates and other intelligent animals living in social groups such as dolphins, elephants, and wolves (Sivaselvachandran et al., 2016).”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Sivaselvachandran, S., Acland, E. L., Abdallah, S., & Martin, L. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Martin, Loren J.
- Venue
- Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-08
- Volume
- 91
- Pages
- 130-137
- ISSN
- 0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2424196396
- Cited by
- 114
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 13
- FWCI
- 1.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Pain Society
- Canada Research Chairs
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Keywords
- empathy, rodents, emotional contagion, emotional mimicry, prosocial behavior, pain, fear, neural mechanisms of empathy, rats, mice
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Emotions, Empathy, Fear, Pain, Rodentia, Social Behavior
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