What would you do if you saw a mouse? If you are anything like me then you would squeal, turn and run. I definitely wouldn’t pay attention to the mouse’s face or feelings at the sight of a huge, towering human. They are heartless beasts after all, right?
Wrong! A new study in Germany has found that mice have up to six different facial expressions which they use to convey: Fear, Pain, Disgust, Pleasure, Sickness and Flight. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology exposed mice to different triggers such as a small shock to the tail, a sweet sucrose drink or an injection which induced nausea to illicit different expressions. The researchers found that the mice’s face shape would change ever so slightly with each trigger. For instance, when given a small electric shock, a mouse would shift its lower jaw and nose as well as moving the ears further back to express its pain. The team also found that an expression could vary in intensity and duration. A mouse would pull a stronger face of pleasure when given a sweet treat, to when it was thirsty.

They then used computer technology to test their findings, by showing the computer pictures of the facial expressions with the corresponding emotion, then removed the labels and asked the computer to identify the emotion. The computer responded with a rate of 90% accuracy.
This study is a major breakthrough in terms of understanding the animals on our planet, it offers new ways of measuring intensity of emotion and also shows that mice have a repertoire of different emotions. I think that it would be interesting to see these tests performed on other animals, so that we could see differences and similarities between human and animal expression.
After researching this topic and discovering so many new things, I ask one thing of you. The next time you see a mouse, don’t dismiss it, remember that it too has feelings and is probably more scared of you than you are of it.