THIS is the moment a courageous mouse shows emergency-like responses by giving “mouse-to-mouse” CPR to a fellow rodent.
Scientists captured the human-like behaviour in a series of experiments which revealed that mice scurry to each other’s aid when another falls unconscious.
Watch incredible moment hero mouse gives CPR to an unconscious pal[/caption]
Researchers believe the behaviour was instinctual rather than learned[/caption]
Mice were shown to release oxytocin, known as the love hormone, when going to aid their fallen friends[/caption]
The rattled rodents would also paw their patients, lick them and pull their tongues out to clear airways.
No mice were harmed in this experiment – the unconscious mice were temporarily placed under anaesthesia to see how their whiskered buddies would react.
The study was published in the journal of Science, and in more than half of the tests, the heroic “bystander” mouse pulled on their unconscious counterpart’s tongue, to enlarge their airway.
In cases where the passed out mouse had a small plastic ball in its mouth, its furry friend managed to extract the object 80% of the time before continuing its first-aid protocol.
The mice would also react quicker if they were familiar with each other before the situation was staged.
Head of the study and neuroscientist Huizhong Whit Tao said: “It seems that the mouse can perform, deliberately, this whole set of behaviours.”
She added that the routine is believed to be instinctual rather than learned, since the mice had not seen an unconscious animal before.
She continued: “This is the first time that we’ve reported these kinds of emergency-like responses from animals.”
The researchers said in the study: “These behaviours are reminiscent of how humans are taught to clear the airway of an unconscious individual during CPR.”
Larger animals such as chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants have previously been documented tending to wounded or distressed mates.
Further studies also showed that the mice released love hormones known as oxytocin when they spotted their unconscious pals.
Mice that were not treated by fellow rodents also took longer to recover than those who were tended to.
The researchers added: “Assisting unresponsive group members may be an innate behaviour widely present among social animals.”
In commentary on the study, William Sheeran and Zoe Donaldson of the University of Colorado said the findings showed that the impulse to help others in distress is “shared by many other species”.
