ANIMAL WELFARE (Ethology II) Flashcards
Steps of stimulus process:
- Stimuli
- Sensors
- Affective state
- Perceptions
- Response
Link between affective state and stimuli perception
People diagnosed with clinical depression
-attention bias towards threatening stimuli
-negative biased memory
-negatively biased judgements of future events and ambiguous stimuli (ex. die/dye, week/weak)
Negative mood state:
-reflects cumulative experience of threat/harm leading to reduced resilience and ‘pessimistic’ decisions under ambiguity
Cognitive bias index:
-% positive response - % negative responses
Effects of stress on cognitive bias:
-stressed rats are more ‘pessimistic’ even if they were optimistic under ‘normal conditions’
Effects of cognitive bias on decision-making:
-‘pessimistic rats’ are more prone to stress-induced anhedonia
-when stressed they decreased how much sweat water they drank
Anhedonia:
-lack of capability of enjoying a good thing/reward
-reduced motivation or ability to experience pleasure
Judgement bias tasks:
-reveal differences in decision-making under ambiguity
-calves exposed white or red coloured screen
-when red=get reward
-had to keep pushing the button to change screen
*ambiguous screen (gradually change in red), still went according to the colour
-when they were debudded (chronic stress) lead to pessimistic bias
Effect of grain on stress/speed leaving the shot:
-wheat=more starch=cause more acidosis=more stress=left the shoot faster
>take restraint worse then those eating barley
Temperament:
-behavioural traits that are stable over time and repeatable across situations
-various temperament traits
Animals unique temperament profile:
-be determined by a mixture of genetic factors and its experiences
Temperament traits:
-aggressiveness
-sociability
-boldness
-activity
-exploration
*component and composite traits
Measuring temperament examples:
-reactivity test
-flight speed
-chute score: accelerator (how much movement they do in the shoot=’attempts’ to escape
Temperament score:
-always had about 10% of the herd be more excited
Ways to analyze temperament: dominance status
-video analysis: flighting, head butting, displacement
-novel object test: see who approaches the new object first
-open field test (sheep with hay in middle and ‘dog stimulus’)
Proactive/active: (coping style)
-higher behavioural activity (aggressive)
-elevated reactivity of the SNS (catecholamines: flight-flight response)
-higher sensitivity to the dopaminergic reward system
Reactive/passive: (coping style)
-lower behavioural activity (freezing)
-elevated reactivity of the PNS (cardiac vagal tone)
-higher reactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (cortisol)
Coping style on immune response:
-humoral-mediated response to immune challenge
-cell-mediated response to immune challenge (thinner skin: passive)
Coping style on growth performance:
-active: ate less when there was a barking dog
-active: increased temperature when LPS injection (immune challenge)
Visual observation in real time:
-first assessment tool available when meeting an animal
-minimally intrusive
-when skilled, it’s powerful and reliable
-can be time consuming or not effective when assessing multiple behaviours or animals at once
-subjective in nature
Video recording:
-versatile but time consuming
-increases versatility
-need good quality
-can have multiple people watch it
Anthropomorphism:
-attribute of human characteristics and mental faculties to non-human agents
>considered a critical danger for ethology research
-easy to use human emotional states and behaviours to describe individual differences in animals
-comparisons should be carefully based on defined behavioral criteria
-avoid methodology with overt emotional connotations (ex. rating vs. coding)
Rating vs. coding:
Castrating calves
-rating: no pain or a lot of pain (subjective)
-coding: urinates, defecate, leg kicks, vocalize (objective)
Ethograms:
-table of all behaviours of interest to be observed in the study of one or more animals that allows quantification
Ethogram behaviours:
-each must be distinct and independent from one another
-must be described explicitly with no room for interpretation
Ethogram with too many categories:
-difficult to use because an animal’s behaviour may change in seconds
Continuously sampling (ethograms):
-observer records all the activity that occurs while the animals are being watch
>record the behaviours for only one animal (focal approach) or for more than one at a time
Scan sampling (ethograms):
-behaviour of one or more individuals in a group of animals are recorded at predetermined time intervals
-records states, rather than events
Precision farming to phenotype animal behaviour:
-to measure and manage herd variability at an individual level
>early diagnostic of diseases
>improved management strategies
Monitoring location examples:
-GPS
-UWB sensors
-video
>markerless video tracking (under development)
>with markers
Tracking the location and movement of farm animals:
-gives insight into the behaviour, health and welfare
Monitoring activity examples:
-video
-accelerometers
-accoustics
Pattern recognition algorithm:
-alternative to visual observation
-based on visual data
*only in rodent models
Accelerometers:
-possible alternative to visual observation
-allows researchers to measure tail motion with minimal time commitment and less subjectivity
Accelerometers and sound recorders:
-attached to head harness to estimate food intake
Other ways to do assessment:
-drone footage: latency between cow and calf
-automatic feeding systems
-microphones to measure vocalizations
