Lecture 7

Question 1

What are the steps of a stimulus processing?

5pt

Answer 1

1. Stimuli- (Abiotic, resources, social, predators, internal, pathogens)
2. Sensors- (Neuro-, chemo-, and Immunosensors)
3. Affective state- (motivations, memories, emotions, moods, arousal)
4. Perceptions- (valence, salience, controllability and predictability)
5. Response- (Physiology, Behaviour, Immune, Morphology and Cognition)

Question 2

People diagnosed with clinical depression…

3pt

Answer 2

• Attention bias towards threatening stimuli
• Negative biased memory
• Negatively biased judgements of future events and ambiguous stimuli (e.g. die/dye, week/weak)

Question 3

What is the Link between affective state and stimuli perception?

1pt

Answer 3

Negative mood state reflects cumulative experience of threat/harm leading to reduced resilience and ‘pessimistic’ decisions under ambiguity

Pessimistic rats are prone to stress

Stressed rats are more pessimistic
pessimistic rats are more prone to the stress-induced anhedonia (less ability to enjoy a good thing)

Question 4

What is temperment?

2pt

Answer 4

• Behavioral traits that are stable over time and repeatable across situations
• Every animal’s unique temperament profile will be determined by a mixture of genetic factors and its experiences

Question 5

How do you measure temperment?

5pt

Answer 5

• Reactivity test
• flight speed
• chute score
• novel object test
• open field test

Question 6

what is the equation for temperment score?

Answer 6

Temperment score = (force exerted during chute inmobilization x flight speed) / reactivity test

Question 7

what behaviours do you see for dominance status?

6pt

Answer 7

• Fighting
• Head butting
• Displacement
• Chasing
• Mounting
• Horning

Question 8

Proactive vs reactive coping style

6pt

Answer 8

Proactive/Active
* Higher behavioural activity (aggressive)
* Elevated reactivity of the Sympathetic Autonomic Nervous System (catecholamines, fight-flight response)
* Higher sensitivity to the dopaminergic reward system

Reactive/Passive
* Lower behavioural activity (freezing)
* Elevated reactivity of the Parasympathetic Autonomic Nervous System (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

Question 9

What are ethograms?

4pt

Answer 9

• A table of all behaviors of interest to be observed in the study of one or more animals, that allows its quantification (frequency and/or duration).
• Each of these behaviors must be distinct and independent from one another.
• Behaviours must be described explicitly, with no room for interpretation.
• An ethogram that consists of too many categories will be difficult to use because an animal’s behaviour may change in seconds.

Question 10

what is Anthropomorphism?

3pt

Answer 10

The attribution of human characteristics and mental faculties to non-human agents:
* Comparisons should be carefully based on defined behavioral criteria.
* Avoid methodology with overt emotional connotations. E.g. rating vs coding

Question 11

what are sampling methods for ethograms and their pros?

5pt

Answer 11

• Continuous sampling: The observer records all of the activity that occurs while the animals are being watched.
  –Better for short-lived behaviours
  –The observer can record the behaviours for only one animal (focal approach) or for more than one at a time.
• Scan sampling: The behavior of one or more individuals in a group of animals are recorded at predetermined time intervals.
  –This sampling methods records states, rather than events

Question 12

What is Visual observation in real time?

5pt

Answer 12

• 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
• Is subjective in nature

Question 13

What is Precision farming to phenotype animal behaviour?

3pt

Answer 13

To measure and manage herd variability at an individual level (including animal movement, activity, feeding behaviour,…)
* Early diagnostic of diseases (use and efficacy of antimicrobials)
* Improved management strategies

Question 14

What do you use to monitor location of livestock?

3pt

Answer 14

• GPS
• UWB sensors
• Video

Question 15

What do you use to monitor activity?

3pt

Answer 15

• Video
• Accelerometers
• Accoustics