And I wanted to study virology (microbial-eletronics kind of deal) when I was a little girl, but was too upset at the idea of disecting animals, even though I appreciate the benefits.
"In response, the mice displayed a subclass of empathy known as "emotional contagion," where one mouse recognizes and adopts the emotional state of another. Surprisingly, this only occurred if the mice knew each other—that is, if they had been cagemates for at least two weeks. This is the amount of time required for a mouse to familiarize itself with the pheromones of another mouse, according to Mogil."
I would think most animals would feel some connection to others of their kind being killed or hurt right in front of them. Thats instinct I think, and to then know they may be next.
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good point, according to the article, the "lower" species don't, the connection that the rat's feel, according to the link, is chemical (exchanging pheromones).
rats have souls? the only reason why they are hated is b/c of their ability to spread disease, great carriers, which also makes them quality lab-experiments. if a person wanted to containmenate a town, a rat would be at work, so, not sure about soul, but they can read chemicals and remember who that other rat was.
Don't encourage her, that little stunt of yours just caused the board yet another 10-20 rant-posts. Use a little common sense in the future, would you walk into a starving grizzle's lair with 25 pounds ( 11.36 kilo, to the Euro-trash) of venison tucked under your arms?
Last edited by Robtard on Aug 29th, 2007 at 07:23 AM
I think there was something somewhere saying that plants also know when you're hurting a plant nearby. It's nothing conscious, probably more of a self-preservation thing.
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There is actually a pretty involved, and imho, a very interesting explanation for this that hits on other things like communications and imitation.
Needless to say, it has nothing to do with being "empathic" or other spiritual nonsense, but more with things called mirror neurons.
If you run, your motor cortex activates the communication with your leg muscles. If you watch someone run, your motor cortex has the exact same activation, however the action is surpressed. Basically, to interpret something as "running", your brain must make the same response as if you were to run. Now, replace "run" with any emotion. This ignores the obvious social dimension to emotions, which makes it somewhat different for emotions than it does for movement, but the idea is still the same.
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Cagemate rats can feel each other's pain
Aug 29th, 2007 02:31 AM
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and yourself?
