Augustine Triumph Attah

Abstract It never rains in standard lab-confinements; thus we have limited understanding of animal reactions to water and wetness. To address this issue, we sprayed water on different body parts of rats and measured drying and fur temperature by thermal imaging while manipulating behavior, sensory cues and fur. Spraying water on rats resulted in fur changes (hair clumping, apex formation), grooming, shaking, and scratching.

Highlights • Independently of sex and familiarity, rats avoid actions harming a conspecific • Prior experience with footshocks increases harm aversion • Rats show large individual variability in harm aversion • Anterior cingulate cortex deactivation abolishes harm aversion Summary Empathy, the ability to share another individual’s emotional state and/or experience, has been suggested to be a source of prosocial motivation by attributing negative value to actions that harm others.