Attention bias to threat indicates anxiety differences in sheep

Abstract

Humans and animals show increased attention towards threatening stimuli when they are in increased states of anxiety. The few animal studies that have examined this phenomenon, known as attention bias, have applied environmental manipulations to induce anxiety but the effects of drug-induced anxiety levels on attention bias have not been demonstrated. Here, we present an attention bias test to identify high and low anxiety states in sheep using pharmacological manipulation. Increased anxiety was induced using 1-methyl-chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP) and decreased anxiety with diazepam, and then we examined the behaviour of sheep in response to the presence of a dog as a threat. Increased attention towards the threat and increased vigilance were shown in sheep that received the m-CPP and reduced in sheep receiving the diazepam. The modulated attention towards a threat displayed by the m-CPP and diazepam animals suggests that attention bias can assess different levels of anxiety in sheep. Measuring attention bias has the potential to improve animal welfare assessment protocols.

What is animal happiness?

“…These include behavioral indicators of momentary affect (e.g., spontaneous postures and behaviors, facial expressions, vocalizations, approach or avoidance responses to novel stimuli), cognitive biases linked to particular affective states (judgment, attention, and memory), or physiological changes linked to acute or chronic affect (e.g., oxytocin). [106][107][108][109][110] Physiological indicators of both momentary and longterm affect include neuroendocrine, 106 immune, 6 and cardiovascular changes, 111 as in humans. We do not describe these behavioral, cognitive, or physiological methods in detail here as these are reviewed elsewhere.…”

Peer Review #1 of "Comparison between two- and three-dimensional scoring of zebrafish response to psychoactive drugs: identifying when three-dimensional analysis is needed (v0.1)"

“…For example, the neuroendocrine machinery activated in response to external stressors exhibits striking homologies and analogies among fish (Bernier & Peter 2001), birds (Lynn & Kern 2018), rodents (Macrì & Wurbel 2006), monkeys (Parker et al 2012), and humans (Rodrigues et al 2009). Likewise, neurotransmitters such as serotonin have been associated with anxiety-related behaviors in species as diverse as fish (Fossat et al 2014), birds (Hogg et al 1994), humans (Caspi et al 2003), and sheep (Lee et al 2016).…”

Peer Review #1 of "An attention bias test to assess anxiety states in laying hens (v0.2)"

“…Attention bias towards a threat is a further potential measure of anxiety (reviewed in Crump et al, 2018). When presented with a threat, anxious individuals will show increased or biased attention towards that threat including increased vigilance behavior and a reduced willingness to feed (Bethell et al, 2012;Bradley et al, 1997;Eilam et al, 2011;Lee et al, 2016Lee et al, , 2018Monk et al, 2018a,b). This attention and vigilance behavior can be assessed as an indicator of the anxious state of the animal.…”

“…Attention bias towards threats has recently been pharmacologically validated as a measure of anxiety in sheep (Lee et al, 2016;Monk et al, 2018a,b) and cattle (Lee et al, 2018) using the anxiogenic drug meta-Chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP). In the recent validation tests, sheep or cattle that were briefly presented a dog while dosed with m-CPP showed increased vigilance and attention towards the previous location of the dog relative to control animals (Lee et al, 2016(Lee et al, , 2018Monk et al, 2018a,b). Internal temperature loggers were also used in these studies to demonstrate stress-induced hyperthermia as a measurable physiological temperature response to the threat while under pharmacological influence (Lee et al, 2018;Monk et al, 2018a,b).…”

“…However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no research on pharmacologically validating an individual-bird test of attention bias following perception of a threat (alarm call) in layers that could be used as a standard welfare assessment test for domestic hens. The drug m-CPP was selected for pharmacological manipulation of anxiety based on the previous success with cattle (Lee et al, 2018) and sheep (Lee et al, 2016;Monk et al, 2018a,b). Physiologically, peripheral temperatures on a hen's head can also be measured as an indicator of a stress-induced hyperthermic response where elevated core temperature correspondingly results in a decrease in peripheral temperatures (Edgar et al, 2011(Edgar et al, , 2013Herborn et al, 2015).…”