In a remarkable discovery, scientists have observed that mice attempt to revive their unconscious companions, akin to humans who often rush to revive them using CPR and other emergency measures. The study published in the journal Science, states that when a drugged mouse was placed in an enclosure, their peer spent more time sniffing and grooming. As the drugged animal became more and more unresponsive, the “bystander” turned to more aggressive first aid tactics.
“It seems that the mouse can perform, deliberately, this whole set of behaviours,” said Huizhong Whit Tao, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California (USC) and study co-author.
“This is the first time that we’ve reported these kinds of emergency-like responses from animals.”
The rodent was spotted pulling the tongue of its mate, so as to provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Researchers said tongue pulling proved especially powerful, as it expanded the airways of unconscious mice. The team even placed small objects in the unconscious animal’s mouths, which tongue-pulling dislodged.
“This was the most surprising part of the study. Obviously the effects are beneficial.”
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The study highlighted that the mice were also much more likely to spring into action for familiar mice, as opposed to strangers.
“These behaviours emerged after prolonged immobility and unresponsiveness of the partner and ceased once the partner regained activity, suggesting that they were triggered by observing unresponsive states of others.”
The intriguing behaviour among rodents was traced to a part of the brain called the paraventricular nucleus, where neurons produce oxycontin—a hormone that promotes empathy-like behaviour in rodents.
Notably, similar rescue behaviours have been observed in larger-brained mammals such as dolphins and elephants. Mice have been known to help others of their kind when they are trapped, but first aid-like behaviours have not been studied in detail in smaller mammals before.
