 This is a prairie vole. Cute, right? Well, in addition to being adorable, these furry critters are extremely social and loyal. They usually mate for life, which is even rarer in rodents than among human beings. In addition, they share parenting responsibilities and engage in social grooming, which effectively means licking one another clean. But now it looks like they also do this as a way of comforting friends and family members, offering a rare example of empathy in the animal kingdom, at least according to a new study in science. In an experiment at Emory University, researchers separated acquainted voles and gave one of the pair a mild shock. Once reunited, the other vole licked their harried pal or relative sooner and more frequently than during control experiments without the shocks. Being licked by a rodent might not be particularly soothing to you or me, but it seems to be the vole version of a comforting pat on the back. Tellingly, this consoling behavior only tended to occur among animals already familiar with one another. Strangers were left to comfort themselves. The underlying mechanism for the behavior appears to be oxytocin, a hormone also involved in vole monogamy, adjacent laying among rats, which is to say, cuddling, and social bonding between humans, including the horizontal kind. The scientists found that when they blocked the flow of oxytocin in prairie voles, the consoling behavior stopped as well. Empathy has previously only been documented in a handful of species, including elephants, dogs, dolphins, and humans on a good day. Even some of those conclusions remain controversial, and these findings may prove so as well. The paper out of the Young Labs looks very interesting and it looks like it's very well done and I think it's a very nice piece of work that looks at physiological responses to specific environmental and social stimuli. I personally wouldn't call it empathy. Empathy is a human concept and it is a concept that is defined by the way we feel internally. It's an internal state. We don't know if what we experience as empathy is the same thing that the prairie voles experience as empathy. But the researchers say that their studies suggest that empathy is more widespread than previously believed and offers insights into the mechanisms driving related behaviors, be they hearty hugs or comforting licks.
 This is a prairie vole. Cute, right? Well, in addition to being adorable, these furry
 critters are extremely social and loyal. They usually mate for life, which is even rarer
 in rodents than among human beings. In addition, they share parenting responsibilities and
 engage in social grooming, which effectively means licking one another clean. But now it
 looks like they also do this as a way of comforting friends and family members, offering a rare
 example of empathy in the animal kingdom, at least according to a new study in science.
 In an experiment at Emory University, researchers separated acquainted voles and gave one of
 the pair a mild shock. Once reunited, the other vole licked their harried pal or relative
 sooner and more frequently than during control experiments without the shocks. Being licked
 by a rodent might not be particularly soothing to you or me, but it seems to be the vole
 version of a comforting pat on the back. Tellingly, this consoling behavior only tended to occur
 among animals already familiar with one another. Strangers were left to comfort themselves.
 The underlying mechanism for the behavior appears to be oxytocin, a hormone also involved
 in vole monogamy, adjacent laying among rats, which is to say, cuddling, and social bonding
 between humans, including the horizontal kind. The scientists found that when they blocked
 the flow of oxytocin in prairie voles, the consoling behavior stopped as well. Empathy
 has previously only been documented in a handful of species, including elephants, dogs, dolphins,
 and humans on a good day. Even some of those conclusions remain controversial, and these
 findings may prove so as well.
 The paper out of the Young Labs looks very interesting and it looks like it's very well
 done and I think it's a very nice piece of work that looks at physiological responses
 to specific environmental and social stimuli. I personally wouldn't call it empathy. Empathy
 is a human concept and it is a concept that is defined by the way we feel internally.
 It's an internal state. We don't know if what we experience as empathy is the same
 thing that the prairie voles experience as empathy. But the researchers say that their
 studies suggest that empathy is more widespread than previously believed and offers insights
 into the mechanisms driving related behaviors, be they hearty hugs or comforting licks.