When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
In all likelihood, you see a complex shape that you immediately recognize as yourself.
Now, a team of researchers has found that mice appear capable of doing the same thing.
Lab mice can show signs of self-recognition when raised alongside similar-looking mice.Photo: (Getty Images)
Researcherspublisheddetails of their experiments with mice and mirrors today in the journal Neuron.
Researchers usually examine how the brain encodes or recognizes others, but the self-information aspect is unclear.
The mice would look in the mirror and then groom themselvesapparently to get the ink splotch off their face.
A dark-furred mouse self-grooms after seeing itself in a mirror.Gif: Yokose et al. 2023, Neuron
Additionally, mice who were not habituated to mirrors before the test did not groom their heads.
Chimps and humans dont need any of that extra sensory stimulus.
As Gizmodo haspreviously reported, the mirror experiment isnt a way to truly understand animal intelligence or psychological complexity.
When those neurons were rendered non-function in the lab setting, the mice did not repeat the grooming behavior.
Neither did black-furred mice that were raised alongside white-furred mice.
That research may involvesimilar face-changing filtersto those on apps like TikTok or Instagram.
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