From Animal Minds to Human Health: Comparative and Translational Psychology in Action at UC Davis
Quick Summary
- At its core, comparative psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes across animal species to help us better understand humans.
- If comparative psychology focuses on the similarities and differences between humans and animals, translational psychology focuses on how we can use that knowledge and translate it to improve human health.
- At UC Davis, the Bliss-Moreau Lab demonstrates how powerful this integration can be.
Typically, psychology often feels like a deeply human science as it is mainly concerned with our thoughts and behaviors. But some of the most powerful insights in the human mind have often come from looking beyond our species. Comparative and translational psychology bridge this gap, using animal research to illuminate universal principles of behavior, and apply them to human health. At UC Davis, the Bliss-Moreau Lab is an extremely strong example of this integrative approach in psychology.
What is comparative psychology? At its core, comparative psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes across animal species to help us better understand humans (Simple Psychology, 2023). Through this subject, researchers compare humans with other animals to understand how behavior evolves as well as how it functions. Rather than categorizing humans as fundamentally separate, comparative psychology assumes continuity in psychology across species, which is a perspective rooted in evolutionary theory. This allows scientists to investigate questions that would be impossible or unethical to study directly in humans, such as invasive neural measurements or controlled developmental manipulations (Abramson, 2023). Overall, comparative work is not limited to identifying differences, but highlights the shared capacities between species that may be evolutionary conserved.
What is translational psychology? If comparative psychology focuses on the similarities and differences between humans and animals, translational psychology focuses on how we can use that knowledge and translate it to improve human health (Breckler, 2025). For instance, animal studies of brain function can inform treatments for psychiatric disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, or developmental conditions. Also, a classic example comes from comparative neuropsychology where tasks originally designed for animals are adapted to study human patients, helping researchers link behavior to specific brain systems. Overall, translational psychology bridges lab discoveries to lived human experience.
So, what is the Bliss-Moreau Lab at UC Davis, and what are they studying? At UC Davis, the Bliss-Moreau lab works with this combination of translational and comparative psychology by conducting translational and comparative affective science using a multi-species, multi-method approach (The Bliss-Moreau Laboratory, 2019). Their research focuses on humans and nonhuman primates, focusing on how emotional and social processes develop across the lifespan, from early infancy to aging. A key theme of the lab is understanding how brain systems generate and regulate emotion, and how these systems are shaped by social environments.
But, going back to the use of primates in this lab, one line of research in the Bliss-Moreau Lab examines interoception, which is the ability to sense internal bodily states like heartbeat or breathing. In a groundbreaking study, researchers demonstrated that rhesus monkeys can perceive their own heartbeats, which provides the first behavioral evidence of interoception in nonhuman primates (Charbonneau et al., 2022). So, why does this matter? Interoception is deeply tied to emotional regulation and mental health, and dysfunctions in this process have been linked to mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression (Paulus and Stein, 2010). By studying interoception in monkeys, researchers can track how this capacity develops, breaks down, and how it might be treated, offering a clear example of comparative and translational psychology in action!
Beyond clinical applications, comparative and translational psychology also reshape how we think about other animals. If emotional and cognitive systems are shared across different species, it raises important ethical questions about animal welfare, which is something the Bliss-Moreau Lab prioritizes in its research practices. At the same time, this work deepens our understanding of human nature. By situating our minds within an evolutionary scale, it challenges the idea that human psychology is completely isolated.
In conclusion, comparative and translational psychology dissolve traditional scientific and species boundaries. At UC Davis, the Bliss-Moreau Lab demonstrates how powerful this integration can be. By studying emotion across species and translating those findings into insights about human health, the lab embodies a future of psychology that is both scientifically rigorous and deeply relevant. In the end, understanding the human mind may depend on a simple but profound shift in perspective: recognizing that we are not alone in having one.
Sources:
https://www.elizablissmoreau.com/
https://www.simplypsychology.org/comparative-psychology.html
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9872648/
https://www.apa.org/monitor/jun06/sd
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38395706/