The mice pull their tongue and give ‘first aid’ to their unconscious companions

In emergency situations, people who witness a collapse and carry out cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), intervene because they intuitively understand that the person, if not for their help, would die. It turns out that humans are not the only ones who have this instinct. Animals as diverse as elephants, chimpanzees or dolphins, can recognize and act by touching, pushing and even transporting an incapacitated individual. As well as Mice do.

Science has published that rodents –Mus musculus– They exhibit “first aid” behaviors towards their unconscious peers: they sniff them, lick their head and even pull their tongue to revive them. This finding shows that the neuronal mechanisms that drive the instinctive rescue In mice can save the life of the animal, as well as the evidence that the impulse to help others in extreme anguish is shared by many species.

Researchers from the University of Southern Californiain the United States, they compared two hundred couples In different situations: the interaction with an active mouse, one sleeping, another unconscious (after anesthesiar) and a few otherly deceased. They concluded that, when rodents meet a partner in an unconsciousness, they exhibit different and consistent behaviors towards him: they touch him, groom, push and even hit him; Actions that imply intense sensory stimulation and remind human responses to an emergency situation.

These movements were observed with more intensity in the presence of a dead or unconscious partner, but not with active or simply sleeping mice (a 47.7% of time recorded compared to 5.8%). According to the study, they arise when a prolonged immobility and inactivity are evidenced and it is “unlikely” that they are motivated by the desire for social interaction or curiosity, because they cease at the time the activity is recovered.

Oxytocin and attachment, keys in the rescue

It is not a random act. After multiple experiments, they detected that attitudes are influenced by “familiarity”: mice They strive more If the affected is a known partner.

The study, in addition, has identified two key brain regions and has revealed that rodents trying to revive their friends experience a oxytocin wave, The hormone of attachment and social behavior. And the improvement is evident: the elimination of foreign objects from the mouth, the improvement of the opening of the respiratory tract or the accelerated recovery, among others.

“Our findings suggest, therefore, that animals show emergency responses similar to those of resuscitation and that helping group members do not respond can be an innate behavior widely present among social animals. It is likely that such conduct performs a paper in the Improvement of cohesion and group survival“He concludes one of the studies.