Cage Mates Show Least Empathetic Responses Compared to Strangers After Fear Conditioning by Proxy in Sprague-Dawley Rats
Faculty Mentor
David Daberkow
Presentation Type
Poster
Start Date
May 2025
End Date
May 2025
Location
PUB NCR
Primary Discipline of Presentation
Biology
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Empathy can be defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and match one’s emotional state to that of another. Previous research has suggested that emotional contagion produces empathetic responses among familiar rats when their cage mate is exposed to a stressor. This study seeks to further explore this relationship and compare responses among familiar vs. unfamiliar rats.
METHODS: Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into cohorts including an observer, demonstrator, and stranger rat. The demonstrator was exposed to shock paired with a tone and the demonstrator, its cage mate, was only exposed a tone but no shock. The stranger rat was housed separately and was exposed to neither tone nor shock. Before interaction in the open field the observer underwent by-proxy fear conditioning. Each group was able to interact with one another in an open arena for 7.5 minutes.
RESULTS: Contrary to our hypothesis, the observer and demonstrator had the least physical contact and had the longest latency to touch, indicating that these groups showed the least empathetic behavior among all the pairings in the open field.
DISCUSSION: Novelty of the stranger rat may have influenced empathetic responses in the observer and demonstrator. In future research, housing each cohort together in triads may eliminate this problem. Also, eliminating the fear conditioning by proxy element and investigating amygdala activity in each group may yield results that are more consistent with existing literature.
Recommended Citation
Avery, Isabella S.; Schell, Jeffrey; Stuhmer, Kolette; Potts, Kris V.; Dillard, Camden; Melone, Alexis; and Day, Sofia, "Cage Mates Show Least Empathetic Responses Compared to Strangers After Fear Conditioning by Proxy in Sprague-Dawley Rats" (2025). 2025 Symposium. 18.
https://dc.ewu.edu/srcw_2025/ps_2025/p2_2025/18
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Cage Mates Show Least Empathetic Responses Compared to Strangers After Fear Conditioning by Proxy in Sprague-Dawley Rats
PUB NCR
INTRODUCTION: Empathy can be defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and match one’s emotional state to that of another. Previous research has suggested that emotional contagion produces empathetic responses among familiar rats when their cage mate is exposed to a stressor. This study seeks to further explore this relationship and compare responses among familiar vs. unfamiliar rats.
METHODS: Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into cohorts including an observer, demonstrator, and stranger rat. The demonstrator was exposed to shock paired with a tone and the demonstrator, its cage mate, was only exposed a tone but no shock. The stranger rat was housed separately and was exposed to neither tone nor shock. Before interaction in the open field the observer underwent by-proxy fear conditioning. Each group was able to interact with one another in an open arena for 7.5 minutes.
RESULTS: Contrary to our hypothesis, the observer and demonstrator had the least physical contact and had the longest latency to touch, indicating that these groups showed the least empathetic behavior among all the pairings in the open field.
DISCUSSION: Novelty of the stranger rat may have influenced empathetic responses in the observer and demonstrator. In future research, housing each cohort together in triads may eliminate this problem. Also, eliminating the fear conditioning by proxy element and investigating amygdala activity in each group may yield results that are more consistent with existing literature.
