PRIMATES aren’t unique in their ability to register a companion’s pain after all. Mice apparently feel pain more keenly if another mouse is going through the same experience, but only if the co-sufferer is a cage-mate.
“We found that if they know each other and can see each other, both mice are in more pain, and the pain behaviours seem to be synchronised,” says Jeffrey Mogil, who led the research at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Mogil’s team fed mice with vinegar, which caused mild stomach ache for 30 minutes or so and made the mice wriggle in discomfort. When two mice that were strangers were…
