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Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Positive Emotional Experiences in Mice

An April 4, 2007, University of Wisconsin news release quotes a researcher's assertion that mice have richly integrated behaviors, vocalizations, and positive emotional experiences:
"They like company. That's the point," says Garet Lahvis, of the gregarious strain of mouse.... A young mouse will seek social interaction and avoid isolation. The social life of these animals is a rich integration of behavior, vocalizations and positive emotional experience."
Actually, most of the mice used by the UW and labs throughout the world have very dark emotional experiences, and we don't need peer reviewed papers to understand why.

The actual paper is available here.

Lead author, grad student Jules Panksepp, must be related to Jaak Panksepp. I wonder if ethical blindness is genetic?

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