Could a mouse save your life? Maybe so.
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Wenjian Sun and team at the University of Southern California tested just that. They wanted to know how animals react when one of their own suddenly loses consciousness.
In the lab, mice were gently introduced to an unresponsive cage-mate. And surprisingly… they jumped into action, like tiny EMTs!
First came sniffing and grooming. Then little nudges and gentle mouth pulls, as if trying to rouse their friend. Brain imaging showed a surge in oxytocin neurons, the same ones linked to empathy and social bonding.
Turns out compassion isn’t just human. Even a mouse can lend a helping… paw.
Reference: Sun, W., Zhang, G.-W., Huang, J. J., Tao, C., Seo, M. B., Tao, H. W., & Zhang, L. I. (2025). Reviving-like prosocial behavior in response to unconscious or dead conspecifics in rodents. Science, 387(6736), eadq2677. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq2677