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At least 1,459 records · Page 81Linked to original sources
PubMed1999

The effects of feeding and housing on the behaviour of the laboratory rabbit.

The effects of housing, feeding time and diet composition on the behaviour of the laboratory rabbit were examined. The animals were caged individually in single or double metal cages with perforated metal floors, metal walls, and bars in the front, or kept as a group in floor pens. The light/dark cycle was 12/12 h with light from 04:00 to 16:00 h and 30 min twilight. One experiment compared feeding equal energy levels of a high energy diet (10.1 MJ/kg) and with a low energy diet (7.0 MJ/kg) at 08:00 h. The second experiment compared feeding the high energy diet at 08:00 h and at 14:00 h. In both studies the behaviour of the rabbits was recorded between 08:00 and 14:00 h and between 16:00 and 22:00 h. Feeding the animals at 14:00 h reduced abnormal behaviour during the dark period compared to feeding at 08:00 h, whereas no difference in behaviour could be detected between feeding a high-energy and a low-energy diet at 08:00 h. Animals in floor pens generally showed less abnormal behaviour than caged animals. The results indicate that the welfare for caged rabbits can be improved by feeding the animals in the afternoon rather than in the morning.

Animal Feed↗
PubMed2025

A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.

Neophobia, or aversion to novelty, is important for adaptability and survival as it influences the ways in which animals navigate risk and interact with their environments. Across individuals, species and other taxonomic levels, neophobia is known to vary considerably, but our understanding of the wider ecological drivers of neophobia is hampered by a lack of comparative multispecies studies using standardized methods. Here, we utilized the ManyBirds Project, a Big Team Science large-scale collaborative open science framework, to pool efforts and resources of 129 collaborators at 77 institutions from 24 countries worldwide across six continents. We examined both difference scores (between novel object test and control conditions) and raw data of latency to touch familiar food in the presence (test) and absence (control) of a novel object among 1,439 subjects from 136 bird species across 25 taxonomic orders incorporating lab, field, and zoo sites. We first demonstrated that consistent differences in neophobia existed among individuals, among species, and among other taxonomic levels in our dataset, rejecting the null hypothesis that neophobia is highly plastic at all taxonomic levels with no evidence for evolutionary divergence. We then tested for effects of ecological factors on neophobia, including diet, sociality, habitat, and range, while accounting for phylogeny. We found that (i) species with more specialist diets were more neophobic than those with more generalist diets, providing support for the Neophobia Threshold Hypothesis; (ii) migratory species were also more neophobic than nonmigratory species, which supports the Dangerous Niche Hypothesis. Our study shows that the evolution of avian neophobia has been shaped by ecological drivers and demonstrates the potential of Big Team Science to advance our understanding of animal behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Rearing on hind legs, environmental novelty, and the hippocampal formation.

Many mammals spontaneously rear on their hind legs in response to novelty. The current paper is the first review of rearing behaviour, and is intended to collate findings from different perspectives that are not usually brought together. We suggest that rearing is a useful marker of environmental novelty, that the hippocampal formation is a crucial component of the system controlling rearing in novel environments, and that rearing is one of several ethological measures that can profitably be used to assess hippocampal learning and memory. Consideration is given to the following topics: the possible functions of rearing in information-gathering and escape behaviour; the modulation of rearing by various factors such as anxiety/ fear emotionality; comparative perspectives on rearing; neuroanatomical circuits involved in rearing with particular reference to the hippocampal formation and its afferents and efferents; and the role of the hippocampal formation in uncharted and mismatch environmental novelty. The review concludes with testable predictions about rearing, environmental novelty and the hippocampus.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Engaging in activities involving information technology: dimensions, modes, and flow.

An engagement mode involves a subject (e.g., a user of information technology, or IT) who is engaged in an activity with an object in a certain manner (the mode). The purpose of this study is to develop a general model of engagement modes that may be used for understanding how IT-related activities are shaped by properties of the user and the IT object. A questionnaire involving items on IT engagement and the experience of flow was administered to 300 participants. The results supported an engagement mode (EM) model involving 5 different engagement modes (enjoying/acceptance, ambition/curiosity, avoidance/hesitation, frustration/ anxiety, and efficiency/productivity) characterized on 3 dimensions (evaluation of object, locus of control between subject and object, and intrinsic or extrinsic focus of motivation). The flow experience follows from a balance between enjoying/ acceptance and efficiency/productivity propelled by ambition/curiosity. The EM model could provide a platform for considering how IT users, IT applications, and IT environments should work together to yield both enjoyment and efficiency. Actual or potential applications of this research include designing IT training programs on different levels of specificity.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Visual prey capture in larval zebrafish is controlled by identified reticulospinal neurons downstream of the tectum.

Many vertebrates are efficient hunters and recognize their prey by innate neural mechanisms. During prey capture, the internal representation of the prey's location must be constantly updated and made available to premotor neurons that convey the information to spinal motor circuits. We studied the neural substrate of this specialized visuomotor system using high-speed video recordings of larval zebrafish and laser ablations of candidate brain structures. Seven-day-old zebrafish oriented toward, chased, and consumed paramecia with high accuracy. Lesions of the retinotectal neuropil primarily abolished orienting movements toward the prey. Wild-type fish tested in darkness, as well as blind mutants, were impaired similarly to tectum-ablated animals, suggesting that prey capture is mainly visually mediated. To trace the pathway further, we examined the role of two pairs of identified reticulospinal neurons, MeLc and MeLr, located in the nucleus of the medial longitudinal fasciculus of the tegmentum. These two neurons extend dendrites into the ipsilateral tectum and project axons into the spinal cord. Ablating MeLc and MeLr bilaterally impaired prey capture but spared several other behaviors. Ablating different sets of reticulospinal neurons did not impair prey capture, suggesting a selective function of MeLr and MeLc in this behavior. Ablating MeLc and MeLr neurons unilaterally in conjunction with the contralateral tectum also mostly abolished prey capture, but ablating them together with the ipsilateral tectum had a much smaller effect. These results suggest that MeLc and MeLr function in series with the tectum, as part of a circuit that coordinates prey capture movements.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Integrated memory for object, place, and context in rats: a possible model of episodic-like memory?

We report an investigation into memory for an object, its spatial location, and the context in which it appeared in rats. A novel task based on the spontaneous recognition paradigm is presented that requires memory for these three aspects. This task is performed easily by intact rats at delays of up to 1 hr. However, performance of the task is severely and selectively disrupted by transection of the fornix. Ability to perform this task is discussed in relation to models of episodic memory in animals, and we suggest that this task provides a simple and useful animal model of episodic memory for use with rats.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Transient inactivation of perirhinal cortex disrupts encoding, retrieval, and consolidation of object recognition memory.

Damage to perirhinal cortex (PRh) impairs object recognition memory in humans, monkeys, and rats when tested in tasks such as delayed nonmatching to sample, visual paired comparison, and its rodent analog, the spontaneous object recognition task. In the present study, we have capitalized on the discrete one-trial nature of the spontaneous object recognition task to investigate the role of PRh in several distinct stages of object recognition memory. In a series of experiments, transient inactivation of PRh was accomplished with bilateral infusions of lidocaine directly into PRh immediately before the sample phase (encoding), immediately before the choice phase (retrieval), or within the retention delay after the sample phase (storage-consolidation). Compared with performance on trials in which they received saline infusions, rats were significantly impaired when lidocaine was infused before the sample phase, regardless of the length of the retention delay. Similarly, delay-independent deficits were observed after immediate pre-choice infusions of lidocaine. Finally, PRh inactivation immediately and 20 min after the sample phase, but not 40, 60, or 80 min after, also disrupted subsequent object recognition when the retention delay was sufficiently long to ensure the dissipation of the actions of lidocaine during the choice phase. The effects of pre-sample and pre-choice inactivation indicate involvement of PRh in encoding and retrieval stages of object recognition, and the time course of post-sample inactivation effects suggests a role for PRh in the maintenance of the object trace during memory consolidation.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Digging behavior of ddY mouse.

In the present studies, the behavior of ddY mice digging wood chips was carefully observed. When mice were individually placed on new 5 cm-thick wood chips, their behavior was found to be the same irrespective of their age or sex. The behavior was not prevented by non-noxious 5 black steel rods which were used to measure digging ability, and was not related to habituation or learning. But moist or dirty chips remarkably weakened digging ability. These findings strongly suggest that the digging behavior is a natural and instinctive one, but not an expression of anxiety as previously reported.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2000

Restraint-induced hypoactivity in an elevated plus-maze.

Rodents submitted to restraint stress show decreased activity in an elevated plus-maze (EPM) 24 h later. The objective of the present study was to determine if a certain amount of time is needed after stress for the development of these changes. We also wanted to verify if behavioral tolerance of repeated daily restraint would be detectable in this model. Male Wistar rats were restrained for 2 h and tested in the EPM 1, 2, 24 or 48 h later. Another group of animals was immobilized daily for 2 h for 7 days, being tested in the EPM 24 h after the last restraint period. Restraint induced a significant decrease in the percent of entries and time spent in the open arms, as well as a decrease in the number of enclosed arm entries. The significant effect in the number of entries and the percentage of time spent in the open arms disappeared when the data were submitted to analysis of covariance using the number of enclosed arm entries as a covariate. This suggests that the restraint-induced hypoactivity influences the measures of open arm exploration. The modifications of restraint-induced hypoactivity are evident 24 or 48 h, but not 1 or 2 h, after stress. In addition, rats stressed daily for seven days became tolerant to this effect.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2000

Nursery paradigm enhances motor engagement of a novel environment by infants of mothers who had a demanding task.

Two groups of bonnet macaque (Macaca radiata) mother-infant dyads were exposed to 12 wk. of a variable foraging demand paradigm for the mothers beginning when the infants were approximately 18 weeks of age. For the nursery group, infants were required to remain in a nursery within the mothers' living area during the entire treatment period. Testing of the dyads of both groups in a novel room subsequent to the differential rearing experience showed that only the infants required to remain within the nursery exhibited an increase in motor engagement of the novel environment over the first hour of exposure, possibly reflecting greater security of attachment in these nursery infants.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Genetic selection for novelty-induced rearing behavior in mice produces changes in hippocampal mossy fiber distributions.

Previous investigations in mice revealed the existence of a set of genes that influence variations in hippocampal anatomy as well as variations in behavioral responses to novelty. In particular, a positive genetic correlation was found between the size of the intra- and infrapyramidal mossy fiber (iip-MF) projection and rearing frequency in an open-field. On the basis of these findings, we hypothesized that genetic selection for rearing would entail correlated changes in hippocampal morphology. This was tested in the inbred selection lines SRH (selection for rearing: high) and SRL (selection for rearing: low). As expected, the SRH mice appeared to possess iip-MF terminal fields that were larger than those of the SRL mice. Because the behavioral difference between the two lines is most probably caused by a single genetic unit, these animals represent valuable material for molecular-genetic investigations into the mechanisms that control behavioral and neuroanatomical variation.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Attention to novelty, fear-anxiety, and age: their effects on conduct problems.

The authors investigated the effects of attention to novelty, fear-anxiety, and age on 3 measures of conduct problems. They found several main and interaction effects. The results indicated the presence of the hypothesized 3-way interaction for 2 dependent measures (i.e., conduct problem, socialized aggression); the 3rd dependent measure (i.e., conduct disorder) approached significance (p = .07). Participants who were older, had low attention to novelty, and high fear-anxiety generally had the highest conduct-problem scores among 8 comparison groups. Older students with high attention to novelty and low fear-anxiety had significantly lower conduct-problem scores that were unremarkable. The findings are congruent with J. Gray's (1987) theory of behavioral activation and inhibition, and the results support R. C. Eaves' (1993) integrated theory of human behavior, which postulates that the level of attention to novelty, fear-anxiety, and age interact to produce individuals with conduct problems.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

The effect of naloxone on object exploration, object recognition and other types of spontaneous behavior.

Object exploration was examined in naloxone injected (1 mg/kg or 4 mg/kg) and saline control rats. Naloxone rats explored an object for a shorter time than did controls, thus indicating a lower investigatory motivation. This effect was dose dependent. Higher drug dose (4 mg/kg) decreased the number of contacts with an object. Both doses increased the mean duration of contacts with an object. The naloxone groups showed intact recognition of a familiar object paired with a new one in two sessions--4 h and 24 h after the injections. The higher drug dose depressed the locomotor activity and wall leaning. Grooming was not influenced by naloxone. The normal daily fluctuations in the level of grooming and locomotion were distorted following the injection of the higher dose of naloxone. The lower dose (1 mg/kg) did not affect the rats' performance in some tests. The results could be viewed as a naloxone-related depression of the behavior containing motor elements like locomotion, wall leaning and object approaching. The prolonged contact time with an object could be the result of a lowered flexibility of movement. However, the decrease of rewarding value of exploration could not be ruled out. Possibly, naloxone exerts several different interacting behavioral effects.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Complex evaluation of the effect of bromantane on animal behavior].

The results of experimental investigation of the effect of bromantan on the behavioral activity of rats in the open-field test were treated by a combination of the discriminant and dispersion methods. The toxic effect of the drug on the neurogenic (neurologic) mechanisms conducting the behavior is evaluated.

Amantadine↗
PubMed2001

Effect of environmental deprivation on anxiety in rats.

Environmental deprivation (ED) induced a significant increase in open-field ambulation, rears, self-groomings, faecal pellets and decrease in activity in centre in Charles Foster albino rats of 30, 45 and 60 days age groups. In elevated plus maze, significant attenuation of open arm time/entries and augmentation of enclosed arm time/entries were noted in ED rats of all the three age groups. Similarly ED rats also showed significant decrease in time spent on open arms, entries, head dips and stretched attend postures in comparison to age matched rats reared under normal environmental conditions. The results indicate that imposition of environmental deprivation in rats' life consistently resulted in significant anxiogenic behaviour on all the tests. However, the anxiogenic effect of ED was less marked when it was imposed at 60th day of life in rats.

Animals↗