Clever Sys, Inc. introduces a new system for the assessment of social learning behavior.  The Empathy Chamber (Chen et al., 2009) allows researchers to measure social behaviors and social fear learning in rodents.

Social learning can take many forms and requires the animal to learn from a variety of conditions, including the distress of another and environmental cues that occur simultaneously with social distress.

Conspecific distress detected in another can induce behavioral as well as physiological changes in rodents and parallels features of human empathy.

The apparatus consists of a standard operant chamber with a shock grid floor and shock grid side wall and a dual compartment side observation chamber with grid floor, and grid sides.