Role Of Cats Research Articles

The value of cat ownership to elderly women living alone.

A survey of elderly women was carried out to discover their attitudes towards pet cats. The women were living in publicly-owned pensioner housing in two New Zealand cities. In one city cats were allowed in the pensioners' housing and in the other city they were not. Attitudes towards cats were more positive in the city where cats were allowed, and more positive if pensioners owned a cat, or wished to own one. As positive attitudes towards cats outweighed negative ones, the City Authority which had prohibited cats reversed its policy. There was conflicting evidence about the role of cats in reducing feelings of loneliness. It appears that "loneliness" signifies the loss of many aspects of social interaction and that pets may substitute for only some of these interactions.

Cortical auditory neuron interactions during presentation of 3-tone sequences: effective connectivity

The role of cat's primary auditory cortex (AI) in both pattern discrimination and sound localization has been demonstrated by observing that ablations of it disrupt these functions. This research studied effective connectivity variations as a function of modifications in the temporal pattern of acoustic stimulation. Recordings of 10–15 neurons (simultaneously and separably) were made in AI of sedated cats. A bundle of 7 microelectrodes was stereotaxically placed along a tangential path. Stimuli were permutations of 3-tone bursts sequences. Each recorded neuron pair was analyzed off-line by cross-correlation of spike trains from neuron pair showed signatures of direct and/or shared input. These appeared individually or in combination and for most pairs were present in spontaneous conditions. However, in stimulated conditions these spontaneous interactions were strongly modulated. The analysis detected differences in neuronal interaction during presentation of different tones. Similar differences occurred during presentation of any single particular stimulus if there was a history of different immediately previous tones. When individual neuron pair cross-correlations were put together to form an effective connectivity diagram among all recorded neurons, they turned out as different diagrams for different stimulus conditions.

Cats--source of protection or infection? A case-control study of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome.

In the first case-control study analyzing risk factors in sporadic hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, 111 cases occurring in Shanghai in 1983 and 1984 and 136 matched controls were studied. Three factors were associated with risk of disease: travel in the month before onset of illness, intense exposure to rodents in the home, and cat ownership. Risk associated with cat ownership was not confounded by exposure to rodents in the home. Neither cat ownership nor risk associated with rodent exposure was confounded by history of travel. The role of cats as reservoir hosts of Hantaan virus is undefined, but this epidemiologic study indicates that infected cats may pose an important risk in the spread of this virus to humans. A survey of peridomestic animals in suburban Shanghai disclosed Hantaan virus infections in two rodent species and in an insectivore, Suncus murinus.

Intestinal helminths of cats in the Kainji Lake area, Nigeria.

Six parasitic helminths detected were Ancylostoma sp., Opisthorchis felineus, Toxocara mystrax, Hepaticola hepatica, Taenia sp. and Hydatigera taeniaeformis. The prevalence of H. hepatica, T. mystrax and H. taeniaeformis is associated with rodents hunted by cats, and that of O. felineus with fish fed to cats. The role of cats as primary host and reservoir for these helminths, which could be of zoonotic importance, is briefly mentioned.

Helminthen aus Katzen und Hunden in Malaya; Bemerkungen zu ihrer epidemiologischen Bedeutung f�r den Menschen

62 cats and 13 dogs from various parts of Malaya were examined for helminths. The frequencies of infection in cats were: hookworms 49 (Ancylostoma ceylanicum, only very few specimens of A. caninum), ascarids 26 (110 Toxocara cati, 16 T. canis), Physaloptera praeputiale 11, Dirofilaria repens* 1, Brugia sp. 1, Gnathostoma spinigerum 1, Syphacia obvelata 2, Dipylidiinae 15 (248 Joyeuxia pasqualei and 74 Dipylidium caninum), Diphyllobothrium sp. 14, Taenia taeniaeformis 4, Platynosomum fastosum 14; Haplorchis pumilio*, H. yokogawai*, H. taichui*, Procerovum sp.* and Centrocestus sp.* 9 (208 H. pumilio, 20 H. yokogawai, 11 H. taichui, 12 Procerovum sp., 1 Centrocestus sp.); Opisthorchis viverrini 2. The frequencies of infection in dogs were: hookworms 13 (465 Ancylostoma caninum and 186 A. ceylanicum), Toxocara canis 4, Dirofilaria immitis 1, Dipylidium caninum 5, Diphyllobothrium sp. 2. The related work by others and the role of cats and dogs as reservoir hosts of human helminths in Malaya are shortly discussed. It is stressed that Opisthorchis viverrini is of much less importance than in neighbouring Thailand. (The species with an asterisk are for the first time reported from Malaya.)