Though they've been getting a bad rep through the years (mostly because of The Black Plague probably), new studies show that it might not be so bad to be called a rat.

In a mostly straightforward experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago devised a method to find out whether a rat would liberate a fellow rat from an offensively restrictive enclosure if it could. The answer was a resounding and definitely surprising yes.

The free rat which they predisposed to occasionally hearing upset calls from its caged neighbor; taught itself how to open the cage and did so with improved competence over time. It would release the other animal even if it registered that there would be no reunion with it; in other words, there would be no big payoff for the good deed.

Amazingly, if given right to use a small reserve of chocolate chips, the free rat would more often than not save at least one of the chips for the captive-this, even just by itself, is a lot to expect from a lowly rodent.

The researchers came to the obvious conclusion that what they were observing was, indeed, empathy. The impression that animals have emotional lives and are proficient enough at being aware of emotions in others has been increasing ground for decades.

Empathic behavior has been observed in apes and monkeys, and expressed by many pet owners (particularly dog owners). Of late, scientists established "emotional contagion" in mice, a circumstance in which one animal's stress aggravates another's.

But empathy that leads to helping (what psychologists label as "pro-social behavior") hasn't been properly revealed in non-primates until now. If this test maintains relevance under scrutiny, it will give neuroscientists a system to study empathy and altruism in an exact way.Watch the video.