Emotional contagion, a primary form of empathy, is present in rodents. Among its associated behaviors, the social transmission of fear is the most studied. In this issue, Zheng et al. applied fMRI and virus-dependent strategies to identify the brain regions and neural circuits involved in vicarious freezing behavior. In the cover image, a demonstrator rat (left) elicits freezing behavior when a cat comes into sight. Meanwhile, the threat-experienced observer rat (right) also shows freezing behavior—vicarious freezing—when seeing the freezing response of the demonstrator. See pages 217–229. (Cover image provided by Prof. Zuoren Wang)