Rats have what appears to be a “laugh centre” in their midbrain that is activated when the animals are tickled or when they engage in play behaviours. Researchers first discovered that rats could ...

One study found that rats emitted ultrasonic vocalizations when they were subjected to manual somatosensory stimulation, i.e., tickling. The results of this controversial research were published in ...

If you tickle a rat's belly, it squeals with laughter. However, we are unable to perceive this laughter as its frequency, around 50 kHz, exceeds the range of human hearing. Neuroscientist Jaak ...

A technique that is increasingly used worldwide to improve the welfare of rats in research is rat “tickling”—whereby humans make light, brisk, and vigorous movements with their fingertips on a rat’s ...

WASHINGTON — So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There's no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out.

If you think laughter and comedy are reserved strictly for humans, you’d be wrong. A study in the late 1990s showed that creatures like rats emit ultrasonic vocalizations while playing with or ...