Analysis Of Animal Behavior Research Articles

Peripheral Administration of Loperamide and Methylnaloxone Decreases the Degree of Anxiety in Rats

We studied the effect of μ-opioid receptor ligands on anxious and depressive behavior of rats. Intragastric administration of loperamide and methylnaloxone reduced animal anxiety evaluated by an increase in the number of entries into and time spent in open arms of the elevated plus-maze. μ-Opioid receptor agonist loperamide had the most pronounced anxiolytic effect. Analysis of animal behavior in the forced swimming test showed that administration of μ-opioid receptor antagonist methylnaloxone reduced the latency of the first submersion, increased the total time of submersion episodes, and shortened the time of active swimming, which attested to depressive properties of this agent. Loperamide had little effect on behavior of rats in the forced swimming test. Thus, μ-opioid receptor agonist loperamide has the antianxiety properties and produced no sedative effect. Therefore, this agent holds much promise as an anxiolytic drug.

Identifying Prototypical Components in Behaviour Using Clustering Algorithms

Quantitative analysis of animal behaviour is a requirement to understand the task solving strategies of animals and the underlying control mechanisms. The identification of repeatedly occurring behavioural components is thereby a key element of a structured quantitative description. However, the complexity of most behaviours makes the identification of such behavioural components a challenging problem. We propose an automatic and objective approach for determining and evaluating prototypical behavioural components. Behavioural prototypes are identified using clustering algorithms and finally evaluated with respect to their ability to represent the whole behavioural data set. The prototypes allow for a meaningful segmentation of behavioural sequences. We applied our clustering approach to identify prototypical movements of the head of blowflies during cruising flight. The results confirm the previously established saccadic gaze strategy by the set of prototypes being divided into either predominantly translational or rotational movements, respectively. The prototypes reveal additional details about the saccadic and intersaccadic flight sections that could not be unravelled so far. Successful application of the proposed approach to behavioural data shows its ability to automatically identify prototypical behavioural components within a large and noisy database and to evaluate these with respect to their quality and stability. Hence, this approach might be applied to a broad range of behavioural and neural data obtained from different animals and in different contexts.

The application of social network theory to animal behaviour

Social network analysis (SNA) is a mathematical technique for analysing social relationships and the patterns and implications of these relationships (Wasserman S, Faust K (1994) Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). It has only recently been discovered by behavioural biologists as a useful tool in the study of animal behaviour (Wey T, Blumstein DT, Shen W et al. (2008) Social network analysis of animal behaviour: a promising tool for the study of sociality. Anim Behav 75: 333–344). Video recording over a 2 month period was used to record the behaviour of the elephant group at Chester Zoo. SNA was applied in an investigation of the group structure and interactions of the group. Observations of individual and group behaviour were based upon 40 h of playback of the social interactions were recorded and analysed using AGNA (2003) and Pajek (2005) packages. The analysis showed that the many facets of individual behaviour could be understood in terms of social structure of the group. This study has demonstrated that SNA is a powerful approach to understanding group dynamics and is particularly applicable to the study of obligate social species. In conclusion, it is suggested that SNA is potentially a useful tool in the management of captive animal populations.

Behavioral Studies and the IACUC: Challenges and Opportunities

The overarching theme of this issue of the ILAR Journal is the neural control of social behavior. In the introduction, Scott Wersinger observes that animal behavior is diverse both across species and among members of the same species, but that there are common characteristics that defi ne social behaviors. Based on his insights and those of the other articles in this issue, I identify challenges and opportunities that institutional animal care and use committees (IACUCs 1 ) face when evaluating animal study protocols that involve the analysis and measurement of animal behavior. Why might behavioral studies pose unique challenges for IACUCs? As explained below, the reasons are as diverse as the behavior itself. But, in addition, behavioral assessment plays a role when the primary goal of the study is not the assessment of behavior; for example, the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience and Behavioral Research (NRC 2003, 23) discuss behavioral assessment as a tool for determining animal well-being: Animal behavior can be an excellent measure for assessing overall health, indeed, the clinical signs used to diagnose disease in animals are often based on behavior (for example, signs of pain)…. A sound understanding of animal behavior is key for the veterinarian or other professional in assessing animal health.

Kinematical Analysis of Animal Behaviour: The Challenge to Increase the Frame Rate in Digital High-Speed Cinematography

ABSTRACTModern digital high-speed film systems are able to capture sequences by extremely high frame rates—over 100 000 fr/s. The equipment costs for such systems are high but the operational costs are practically zero. An important advantage of digital versus analogue high-speed films is the possibility to automatically “digitize” defined markers. The contrast and brightness of the sequences can be modulated in wide ranges; even at very high frame rates, a film can therefore be shot at relatively low light intensity. The construction and sensitivity of modern charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors allow filming with relatively high resolution at over 10 000 fr/s. The only remaining limiting factor for increasing the frame rate is the light level to which the animals are tolerant and still behave “normally” during the experiments. The present study uses film sequences from feeding events and defensive responses in animals, but also films of pistol shots, to demonstrate that choosing an adequate frame rate is crucial for any kinematical analysis.

Automated species recognition of antbirds in a Mexican rainforest using hidden Markov models

Behavioral and ecological studies would benefit from the ability to automatically identify species from acoustic recordings. The work presented in this article explores the ability of hidden Markov models to distinguish songs from five species of antbirds that share the same territory in a rainforest environment in Mexico. When only clean recordings were used, species recognition was nearly perfect, 99.5%. With noisy recordings, performance was lower but generally exceeding 90%. Besides the quality of the recordings, performance has been found to be heavily influenced by a multitude of factors, such as the size of the training set, the feature extraction method used, and number of states in the Markov model. In general, training with noisier data also improved recognition in test recordings, because of an increased ability to generalize. Considerations for improving performance, including beamforming with sensor arrays and design of preprocessing methods particularly suited for bird songs, are discussed. Combining sensor network technology with effective event detection and species identification algorithms will enable observation of species interactions at a spatial and temporal resolution that is simply impossible with current tools. Analysis of animal behavior through real-time tracking of individuals and recording of large amounts of data with embedded devices in remote locations is thus a realistic goal.

The effects of buprenorphine on behaviour in the ACI and BN rat inbred strains

Buprenorphine is a partial mu, kappa agonist that has been shown to influence spontaneous behaviour in animals. Previously, we have demonstrated significant differences in the analgesic response to buprenorphine between the August Copenhagen Irish (ACI)/SegHsd and the Brown Norway (BN)/RijHsd inbred rat strains. The purpose of this study was to determine whether these strains also differed in their behavioural response to buprenorphine in order to provide an additional parameter for the genetic analysis and localization of genes involved in this response. Male and female rats of both strains were used (n = 6/strain/sex) for this study. Each rat was subjected, respectively, to three treatment regimens at 15:00 h: (A) unchallenged; (B) intravenous saline; (C) intravenous buprenorphine (0.05 mg/kg) according to a crossover design. The relative duration (s/h) of locomotion, grooming, drinking and eating behaviour was subsequently determined from 15:30 to 07:00 h using the automatic registration system, Laboratory Animal Behaviour Registration and Analysis System(trade mark). Significant strain differences were observed in unchallenged behaviour between the ACI and the BN rats. ACI rats, but not BN rats, responded to buprenorphine treatment with decreased levels of locomotion, drinking and eating behaviour. The same treatment resulted in an increased grooming behaviour in both strains. Slight but significant sex differences were observed for locomotion and eating in the analysis of variance procedure, but did not reach the level of statistical significance in the multiple comparison procedure. The results of this study emphasize the possibility that strain-specific effects must be taken into account when using behavioural parameters for the assessment of the analgesic effects of buprenorphine in rats.

Individual invention versus socio-ecological innovation: Unifying the behavioral and evolutionary sciences

AbstractGreat promise for the evolutionary analysis of animal behavior lies in the distinction between generative novelties and the evolutionary innovations to which they can give rise. Ramsey et al. succeed in emphasizing the contribution of individual learning and intelligence to behavioral innovations, but do not correct the tendency to confound individual invention with socio-ecological or group-level innovation.

Automated analysis of behavior: A computer‐controlled system for drug screening and the investigation of learning

Efforts to understand cognition will be greatly facilitated by computerized systems that enable the automated analysis of animal behavior. A number of controversies in the invertebrate learning field have resulted from difficulties inherent in manual experiments. Driven by the necessity to overcome these problems during investigation of neural function in planarian flatworms and frog larvae, we designed and developed a prototype for an inexpensive, flexible system that enables automated control and analysis of behavior and learning. Applicable to a variety of small animals such as flatworms and zebrafish, this system allows automated analysis of innate behavior, as well as of learning and memory in a plethora of conditioning paradigms. We present here the schematics of a basic prototype, which overcomes experimenter effects and operator tedium, enabling a large number of animals to be analyzed with transparent on-line access to primary data. A scaled-up version of this technology represents an efficient methodology to screen pharmacological and genetic libraries for novel neuroactive reagents of basic and biomedical relevance.

Further validation of LABORAS™ using various dopaminergic manipulations in mice including MPTP-induced nigro-striatal degeneration

The automated behavioural apparatus, LABORAS™ (Laboratory Animal Behaviour Observation, Registration and Analysis System), has been further validated with respect to the ability of the system to detect behavioural impairments in mice, following various dopaminergic manipulations. Initially data were obtained from mice administered with amphetamine, haloperidol, SCH23390, apomorphine and l-DOPA, with the focus on locomotor and grooming activities. The data recorded by LABORAS™ on administration of these pharmacological tool compounds, is comparable with published findings using standard LMA systems and conventional observer methods. In addition the home cage behaviour of mice administered with the dopaminergic neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) using an acute dosing regimen was also investigated. In LABORAS™, mice subjected to MPTP lesioning showed deficits in spontaneous motor activity at day 6–7 post-MPTP administration, over a 24 h test period, as compared to saline treated controls. The data captured and analysed using LABORAS™, suggests that the automated system is able to detect both pharmacologically and lesion-induced changes in behaviour of mice, reliably and efficiently.

Unusual vision – machine vision applications at the NCEA

PurposeThe paper draws together a range of somewhat unusual machine vision applications, with an integrating overview.Design/methodology/approachThe National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture is amassing a portfolio of projects involving machine vision. These include identification of animal species, visual counting of macadamia nuts, analysis of animal behaviour and a number of quality control functions. DirectX tools have been developed and are applicable across a wide range of applications, while theory is extended in several ways.FindingsMost of the projects are still in progress, but results are reported on the degree of success of a range of methods. Strategies and algorithms are discussed.Research limitations/implicationsVision‐based solutions are applied to a diversity of tasks. There will be a continuing stream of such problems with abundant opportunities for research.Practical implicationsThe projects are in essence practical, although they have inspired new methodologies. They are conducted in close collaboration with the industries involved and will be deemed to have failed if the outcome is not put to commercial use.Originality/valueThe paper draws together a portfolio of projects, allowing an analysis to be made of the features that unite and differentiate them. It will be of interest to both researchers and those with instrumentation problems.

A new way of looking at eating

the analysis of meals, especially of spontaneous meals, has long had a problematic place in the behavioral neuroscience of eating. Only a small minority of eating researchers now, or ever, have concerned themselves with meal patterns. On first glance this seems paradoxical. After all, eating occurs

Heuristics or general learning processes?

The concept of heuristics implies that the rules governing choice behavior may vary with ecological constraints. Behavior analysis, in contrast, seeks general principles that transcend specific situations. To the extent that search is successful, the concept of heuristics is unlikely to play a significant role in the analysis of animal behavior.

Detailed analysis of the behavior of Lister and Wistar rats in anxiety, object recognition and object location tasks

The present study, examines some issues in the measure and analysis of behavior in animals. Two strains of rats of both genders were used to illustrate and discuss these issues. We examined to what extent various behavioral measures reflect different or identical emotional or cognitive factors and, how sensitive are the various parameters of a task to differences between strains and genders. Wistar and Lister males and females rats were tested in an anxiety test then in the object recognition task followed by the object location task. Taking advantage of a simple computer program it is possible to: (1) record several parameters of theses tasks and examine the pattern of animal responses toward novelty and/or familiarity; (2) examine whether different measurements of the same response would reflect anxiety response to novelty and, can they discriminate between novelty and familiarity responses to objects; and (3) examine if changes in the pattern of animal responses are reflected by these measurements and, whether anxiety or discrimination is evident mainly during the first minute of the test. The results on the anxiety test show that different measures of the same response proved concordant and revealed significant differences between Lister males and Wistar males. Lister males approached more frequently an object and spent more time on an object in each approach compared to Wistar males in the first 5 min of test and in the total 10 min. They have also shorter latencies between approaches compared to Wistar males. The examination of performance over different time bins was significant with the measure of frequency. Lister male rats approached less frequently the object in the last 5 min of the test compared to the first 5 min. Their performance, however, did not differ from that of the other groups in this last 5 min. In the memory tasks, the measure of the frequency of approaches suggests that Lister male rats were able to discriminate between novel and familiar objects and, between novel and familiar location of objects. The measure of latency of first approach shows that Wistar female rats were able to discriminate between objects only in the spatial memory test. Discrimination in the object recognition task was observed in the first and second minute, and in the total 3 min sessions. Discrimination in the object location task was observed with the measure of frequency of approaches, in the first minute, and in the total 3 min sessions. Results from the total 3 min sessions were more concordant between the different measures of discrimination than results from separate 1 min bins. The results from the two memory tasks show that novelty prevented habituation to re-exposure to the testing environment. In many cases, novelty increased exploration of the objects in the choice phase compared to the sample phase. However, this lack of habituation or increased exploration in the choice phase is not concordant with most results of discrimination between novelty and familiarity from the same type of measurements.

Qualitative Modelling and Analysis of Animal Behaviour

The paper presents the LABAQM system developed for the analysis of laboratory animal behaviours. It is based on qualitative modelling of animal motions. We are dealing with the cognitive phase of the laboratory animal behaviour analysis as a part of the pharmacological experiments. The system is based on the quantitative data from the tracking application and incomplete domain background knowledge. The LABAQM system operates in two main phases: behaviour learning and behaviour analysis. The behaviour learning and behaviour analysis phase are based on symbol sequences, obtained by the transformation of the quantitative data. Behaviour learning phase includes supervised learning procedure, unsupervised learning procedure and their combination. We have shown that the qualitative model of behaviour can be modelled by hidden Markov models. The fusion of supervised and unsupervised learning procedures produces more robust models of characteristic behaviours, which are used in the behaviour analysis phase.

Radiation treatment decreases bone cancer pain, osteolysis and tumor size.

Radiotherapy is the cornerstone of palliative treatment for primary bone cancer in animals and metastatic bone cancer in humans. However, the mechanism(s) responsible for pain relief after irradiation is unknown. To identify the mechanism through which radiation treatment decreases bone cancer pain, the effect of radiation on mice with painful bone cancer was studied. Analysis of the effects of a 20-Gy treatment on localized sites of painful bone cancers was performed through assessments of animal behavior, radiographs and histological analysis. The findings indicated that radiation treatment reduced bone pain and supported reduced cancer burden and reduced osteolysis as mechanisms through which radiation reduces bone cancer pain.

Fractal analysis of animal behaviour as an indicator of animal welfare

AbstractAnimal welfare assessment commonly involves behavioural and physiological measurements. Physiological measures have become increasingly sophisticated over the years, while behavioural measurements, for example duration or frequency, have changed little. Although these measures can undoubtedly contribute to our assessment of an animal's welfare status, a more complex analysis of behavioural sequences could potentially reveal additional and valuable information. One emerging methodology that could provide such information is fractal analysis, which calculates measures of complexity in continuous time series. Its previous application in medical physiology suggested that it could reveal ‘hidden’ information in a dataset beyond that identified by traditional analyses. Consequently, we asked if fractal analysis of behaviour might be a useful non-invasive measure of acute and chronic stress in laying hens and in pigs. Herein, we outline our work and briefly review some previous applications of fractal analysis to animal behaviour patterns. We successfully measured novel aspects of complexity in the behavioural organisation of hens and pigs and found that these were stress-sensitive in some circumstances. Although data collection is time consuming, the benefit of fractal analysis is that it can be applied to simple behavioural transitions, thereby reducing subjective interpretation to a minimum. Collectively, the work to date suggests that fractal analysis — by providing a novel measure of behavioural organisation — could have a role in animal welfare assessment. As a method for extracting extra information from behavioural data, fractal analysis should be more widely examined in animal welfare science.

LABORAS™: Initial pharmacological validation of a system allowing continuous monitoring of laboratory rodent behaviour

A newly developed apparatus for automated behavioural analysis, Laboratory Animal Behaviour Observation, Registration and Analysis System (LABORAS™), has been further validated with respect to the ability of the system to detect the pharmacodynamic effects of standard pharmacological tools. Data were obtained from rats administered with mCPP (reversal with SB242084), 8-OH-DPAT (reversal with WAY100635), amphetamine (reversal with haloperidol) and angiotensin, with the focus on locomotor activity, feeding and drinking behaviours. The data captured and analysed by LABORAS™, suggests that the automated system is able to detect pharmacologically induced changes in behaviour, reliably and efficiently, with a significant reduction in the number of animals required, and reduced operator input.

Behavioral effects of cocaine and dopaminergic strategies for preclinical medication development.

The illicit use of cocaine is a persistent health problem worldwide. Currently, there are no broadly effective pharmacotherapies to treat cocaine addiction. A prerequisite for development of useful anti-cocaine medications is an understanding of the pharmacological basis of cocaine's effects. The functional analysis of behavior in laboratory animals has allowed for the development of strategies identifying candidate medications to treat cocaine addiction. This review summarizes the current status of dopaminergic compounds as cocaine pharmacotherapies in animal models of cocaine addiction. Maintenance medications should share key subjective effects with cocaine, yet have limited abuse liability and side effects. However, maintenance medications often have reinforcing effects that could contribute to abuse potential and side effects that could deter patient compliance. Combined with cocaine, these drugs enhance cocaine's effects. Cocaine antagonists should block the effects of cocaine and have no cocaine-like effects or side effects on their own. However, the cocaine-modulating effects of candidate cocaine antagonists are often surmountable, and, on their own, these drugs produce severe motoric side effects. In contrast, dopamine (DA) partial agonists should exhibit reduced abuse potential relative to agonists, as well as less severe motoric effects relative to antagonists. Combined with cocaine, these drugs should antagonize cocaine's effects. DA partial agonists, in particular the D(3)-selective and the D1-like partial agonists, offer a more encouraging profile for novel anti-cocaine medications. Neither class of drug is self-administered, and side effects are often less severe and only observed at doses above those that antagonize the effects of cocaine.

Evolutionary Theory and Primate Behavior

Evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhanski (1973) stated that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Primate behavior is a biological phenomenon and as such it is likely to be the product of evolution. Primate behavior can be studied at different levels of analysis— ontogeny, causation, function, and phylogeny—and from the perspective of different disciplines such as biology, psychology, or anthropology. Regardless of the type of questions being addressed and the discipline being used as a theoretical and methodological framework, it is unlikely that a deep and comprehensive understanding of primate behavior will ever be achieved without a consideration of evolutionary issues. The main motivation for us to produce this special issue was to promote links between primatological research and important concepts and developments in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. The importance of evolutionary theory to understand behavior was only fully appreciated almost 100 years after the publication of Darwin’s (1859) The Origin of Species, thanks to the seminal contributions of scholars such as William Hamilton, George Williams, Robert Trivers, and John Maynard Smith. They revolutionized the evolutionary study of behavior by providing a wealth of testable hypotheses about the adaptive value of many aspects of behavior, including predator avoidance, foraging, cooperation and competition, mating and parenting. Although studies on the adaptive function of behavior were undertaken with virtually every animal species, evolutionoriented research has progressed and expanded at a faster pace with some animal taxa than with others. A cursory analysis of the recent animal behavior