Do Animals Feel Love, Grief & Happiness Like Humans? | Neuroscientist | Raj Shamani Clips

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]When you study the effect of something, let's say some medicine, some drug, some psychedelic, some inducing chemicals, >> a rat's brain, does it show similar kind of >> Yes.

[00:00:15]>> like things that as a human brain?

[00:00:17]>> It does because >> so let's say if you put like a depressed human brain and a depressed rat brain, >> correct?

[00:00:22]>> And then you put one medicine which is making both of them happy.

[00:00:25]>> Correct.

[00:00:26]>> They give you the same similar.

[00:00:27]>> They can give you similar responses. I will not say same because the complexity of this brain, the human brain is definitely more than the complexity of the rat brain.

[00:00:34]>> Interesting. So, and and would you say that rat's brain is the closest thing?

[00:00:39]>> The closest thing to us is the non-human primates. So, the gorillas and the chimps and the monkeys are the closest because they are our cousins.

[00:00:47]>> They are first cousins. Okay? In the family of life, they are our first cousins. And it's very obvious if you look at a bunch of monkeys you'll begin to realize that actually in principle this could be humans as well. You know there's like relationships you remember who's whose ar then they remove the you know they remove the the lice that's the way they have. So we also have our ways of grooming each other a lot of like when you see a family together people will line up and do chumpy to each other. It's because it's a way of indicating care.

[00:01:16]>> It's our language of care and you see the very similar things in non-human primates as well. They are the closest to us, but they are much more complex species and they're not the ideal species in which to do research. First of all, >> they feel a lot. They're like us with a much broader emotional spectrum and so they come with the challenges that when you went to go inside the brain and look, >> it's not ethically viable to do these experiments in non-human primates as easily. That's not to say that nobody has. people do some critical work is done in non-human primates but they're not the species of choice to study.

[00:01:51]>> But why if monkey is the closest to human, >> right? Why are we >> because they're also they're also the closest to human and we identify deeply with them. It's the same way as what when we look at the hierarchies of species. Species that exhibit large amount of care and a large amount of nurture are the species that we'll be better if we do it. I understand but then we probably do it via imaging where we don't have to take the life of the ant. We will not do something that takes the life of the animal. Right? So this is where this is where the boundaries of what one ethically can do. A lot of this can also be studied in the human brain.

[00:02:26]You can image the human brain. You can image the monkey brain but you will not take the life when you go in because you're using that animal to study but you have an ethical framework in which you are using those animals. But here's my little complicated question, more philosophical rather, right?

[00:02:45]>> Who set this boundary that taking a life of a rat is ethical versus >> I completely agree >> taking a life of monkey is not ethical.

[00:02:51]So >> if it's animal, it's it has to be animal.

[00:02:54]>> We tend to apply this based on sensience and understanding of consciousness. We know that we are conscious, right? We now are attributing an understanding of consciousness to other species. Species that are closer to us in the complexity of their brains. Whales, dolphins, monkeys, gyms, gorillas, their complexity of their nervous system is much closer to us. And so we attribute to them greater understanding of complex emotions and consciousness like states which we do not attribute so much to a rat. Now that may be a little bit of an unfair categorization because rats also show empathy. They can also show altruistic behavior and they do feel.

[00:03:38]It's not like they don't feel right. So there is this awareness that we have.

[00:03:42]However, somewhere in the history of time we could have also said let's just study flies which also have complex nervous systems. They fly etc. They have a much shorter lifespan and people do a lot of things we do. We study in worm.

[00:03:54]We study and fly but we can't study the mamalian brain in worm and fly and the mamalian brain is much more closer to us because we are mammals. So to it was a via media. Is it the best solution? No.

[00:04:07]But it is a via media solution that the community has come up with at the same time saying that there will still be strict ethical oversight over all experiments. All experiments have like ethical clearances that have they have to go through. But it's a very fair question and it's one which is difficult to deal with and a difficult one to answer because in a sense you're saying we are putting human life as a higher value than the life of the animal that we are taking to be able to study right so there is there is that sort of a thing that >> let's say we have put in human as because every species is selfish and they think their species is the top level specy right you could see that in multiple other species and animals as well they would even their totally unrelated animals they'll save their animal similar and attack hum. So let's say we put humans at the top because we humans we're biased.

[00:04:56]>> But how do we decide hierarchy of what are the animals who are going to be >> worth taking life versus not taking >> probably in terms of the complexity of their nervous system and the tendency of those species to do a great deal of nurture and care. Right? So when you look at monkeys and non-human primates, there's a lot of community social architecture where they exhibit a lot.

[00:05:21]They also mourn very visibly mourn.

[00:05:23]Elephants very visibly mourn. That is not to say that a rodent doesn't feel that kind of pain and suffering, but it's not as visible perhaps.

[00:05:33]>> But do they do they feel?

[00:05:34]>> They definitely feel they definitely feel >> like if a rat does another animal go through pain, it feels it. There's something called witness element and there's witness stress and that is experienced even by rodents.

[00:05:47]>> So two unrelated rats. Yeah.

[00:05:49]>> You put both of them in a lab and one rat sees another rat going through extreme pain and torture. This rat will feel >> it will feel it.

[00:05:57]>> Interesting. Very just I don't know which angle we've taken the podcast but I find it very interesting. And so goat brain you said you study goat brain because it's the closest.

[00:06:08]>> I mean you can study >> in terms of shape and size. We study the rat and the mouse most in my laboratory.

[00:06:13]>> No. So you got today rat, mouse and goat. Why goat?

[00:06:17]>> Goat because it'll look most to someone who has never seen a brain like something that they imagine the human brain to look like.

[00:06:25]>> Right? So if I have to say here Raj, here's a brain. I'm showing you a brain and can you see this and immediately think of something you remember from when you were in school? Then the goat brain immediately evokes that memory.

[00:06:36]But if I show you a rat and mouse brain, you'll say that's interesting, but it doesn't look like anything. That's why I got the goat brain also so that you may see that the building blocks are similar. It doesn't matter which species you're studying. The building blocks are very very similar. And by studying the building blocks, you can understand much about what is happening in our brain.

[00:06:56]>> Okay. You were showing me this. What what is this?

[00:06:58]>> So now I showed you so I showed you what the cortex looks like. Okay. And with a very old kind of technique called GG staining. And what I'm going to do now is show you what I think I should have in this the the the Wow, you did a good job. You did that automatically almost.

[00:07:14]Okay, let me just see if I can zoom and show you. Yeah.

[00:07:18]>> So, you know, we were talking about gray matter and white matter, right? So, gray matter I told you is the place where all the cells are. So, now if I want to see the cells, is there a way I can stain the cells? So, in this there's a Nissle stain which allows you to stain the cell body.

[00:07:32]>> What is Nissle stain? It's just a stain that binds to RNA granules inside cells.

[00:07:37]>> I still didn't get it. Explain it simply.

[00:07:40]>> It's it's a chemical that will go and bind to a certain kind of a molecule within your cell. And so because of that, it'll stain all these cells and so they end up staining a nice blue.

[00:07:50]>> Okay.

[00:07:50]>> So you can see them. They'll be dark blue and they look circular because these cells are largely either circular, parameal or oval or elliptical. So So this is how you find out cells.

[00:07:59]>> Yeah. This is in the hippocam.

[00:08:00]>> You study these So, so there is like one purple thingy I do. I see. And then there's a blue thing.

[00:08:08]>> The blue thingy is what you're looking at. Those blue cells. Can you see them all like next to each other? They look like grapes almost next to each other.

[00:08:17]>> They're all next to each other. And that's the hippoc campus.

[00:08:20]>> This is this >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like blue blue dots next.

[00:08:24]>> Yeah. But then I see like this one sort of like one thing coming out as well.

[00:08:27]>> Yeah. That that's an air bubble that has happened. That is not a good slide. So it's a bubble. So ignore the ignore.

[00:08:34]>> Just I'm just supposed to see the blue thing which is pajama looks like freckles.

[00:08:39]>> Yeah, it looks like freckles. It's exactly that. But those are the cells in the hippocampus. That's your memory making structure in the brain.

[00:08:45]>> So these like these thousands or maybe millions of >> so in a freckles is memory.

[00:08:51]>> Memory that's where your memories made.

[00:08:54]>> So you need the hypoc campus to make new memories. So, do like each one of them actually form a memory in my head?

[00:09:01]>> So, that's a interesting question.

[00:09:02]There's a hypothesis called the formation of engrams. Okay? And I'll tell you what this engram formation is.

[00:09:08]It's a an idea that's not that new, but it's been something people have been working on very closely in the last 10 years. So, let's say I come to this room right now. I have this this room in which I see Raj Shamani opposite me. I see it says figuring out. I have this bottle with water. I'm creating a memory of this moment of this time of this individual and I will now walk away from here and the next time I come back here if that memory has been strongly made it will activate certain cells in my brain that have encoded this memory right so let's say I have cells A B C D E F G in that part of the brain that encode this memory then I go away I'm not coming back here immediately one week later you happen to say why don't you come over to the studio and I come over and then those same cells get reactivated because that memory has stopped. So that's a that's called an engram. It's the physical map of the where the memory is stored in my brain.

[00:10:03]>> Now let's imagine I go to somebody else's studio.

[00:10:06]>> Now that studio happens to have the exact same table, the exact same whatever. Maybe it doesn't have Rajaman has something but very similar.

[00:10:13]>> Similar. Okay. Same color. Very similar.

[00:10:16]And I get a partial activation of the engram. And then I would think, "Oh, maybe I've been here before." Which is actually not true. I haven't been there.

[00:10:23]But because it over overlapped so much with something that I already had a memory of, I get this weird feeling of deja vu where I'm like, I think I've been here before, but I actually haven't. It's just that my brain thinks I've been here because there's this reactivation of this engram. So this partial activation of the engram is enough to bring back the whole thing. So our brain is something it's it's a pattern completer. It wants to take partial information and finish the information. So it takes a little bit of information says ah I think I've seen this and now let me finish the whole story in my head. It's like how we don't have the patience to hear the whole story. You start telling me a story and I'm like but I know where you're going with this. Now don't finish the story. I understood what you're saying. Right? So that tendency of our brain is to take shortcuts. We're a shortcut making. We want to finish quickly quickly like let's get this done and let me get all the information out partially and complete the whole picture because I think motor yeah exactly I will get it mostly right and 95% of the time you'll get away with it also because you may get it broadly but sometimes in the detail you will get it wrong >> and when you get it wrong in the detail the only way to correct that is by slowing it down. You have to slow it down. Take the time to learn it. So for example, let's say you take an exam.

[00:11:42]Let's say you have an exam to do tomorrow and you decide you're going to mug everything that is there today. And broadly you may get some part of it correct the next day. 2 weeks later I ask you to remember anything. You have forgotten everything because it was shortterm short-term memory and you have not really learned it. you have memorized it and vomit it out and then your brain says now I'm not wasting any taken properly it >> so what you remember as short-term quickly done shortcut associated doesn't last >> the brain is not wasting too much so even when you go back into school >> the few subjects that you really love and you really learned you learned well you will feel comfortable with a lot of other stuff you've just memorized.

[00:12:32]>> I have no idea.

[00:12:34]>> Forgotten. You've just vomited it out and it's now blank. Like if somebody asks you say I did I ever really study that I don't remember studying.

[00:12:41]>> But do they get stored in these these blue dots?

[00:12:44]>> They do get stored in the strength of the connections between these two dots.

[00:12:48]So those right now you're seeing only the blue dots.

[00:12:50]>> You're not seeing the nerve connections between the dots. For that you need a different kind of stain. The stain I showed you before showed all these fibers coming out. Right? So those are the axons and the dendrites. That's where all the connections are made between these cells. Now if I take my skin cells, they don't have these kinds of branches. Cells stuck next to each other. They're epithelial cells. But cells in the brain produce their functions by talking to each other. It's all communication. It's a signal that I send to you and you receive the signal.

[00:13:19]I send the signal through my axon. If I was a cell and if you were a neuron also, you were receiving it through your dendrites. So this is how we are communicating. It is in the communication that the memory is eventually strengthened and maintained.

[00:13:32]>> Thank you so much for watching this video till the end. If you'd like to watch moreformational and educational clips, please subscribe to Rajamani Cliff channel and share this video with someone who you think would like to learn