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Updated: Jan 21, 2026
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Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice
Published on: November 22, 2024
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Empathy in stroke rats is modulated by social settings
Kazutaka Shinozuka1, Naoki Tajiri1, Hiroto Ishikawa1
1Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, Department of Neurosurgery, USF Morsani College of Medicine, Tampa, FL, USA.
Summary
Rats exposed to stroke showed psychological stress, impacting behavior and physiology. Cagemates experienced similar stress, indicating empathy influences stress responses in social settings.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Animal Behavior
- Stress Physiology
Background:
- Rodents exhibit empathy, perceiving distress from cagemates experiencing trauma.
- Previous studies show social transmission of stress in rodents.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate empathy-driven stress responses in rats with an experimental stroke.
- To determine if stroke-induced stress is communicable to non-stroke cagemates.
Main Methods:
- Inducing experimental stroke in adult rats.
- Measuring psychological stress via locomotor activity, Rat Grimace Scale (RGS), and plasma corticosterone.
- Analyzing thymus protein expression related to advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) via Western blot.
Main Results:
- Stroke impaired locomotor activity in affected rats and their non-stroke cagemates.
- Stroke rats exhibited higher RGS scores.
- Plasma corticosterone increased in stroke rats housed with other stroke rats, but not with non-stroke rats.
- Thymus AGE-related protein expression correlated with behavioral and physiological stress markers.
Conclusions:
- Stroke induces behavioral and physiological stress in rats.
- Empathy plays a role in the social transmission of stress.
- Social housing conditions modulate stress responses in stroke models.
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