Reassessment of the cardio-respiratory stress response, using the king penguin as a model

Willener, Astrid S. T.; Halsey, Lewis G.; Strike, Siobhán; Enstipp, Manfred R.; Georges, Jean‐Yves; Handrich, Yves

doi:10.3109/10253890.2014.986451

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…respiration rate and skin temperature) as well as a decrease in RMSSD (Briefer et al, 2015;Zebunke, Langbein, Manteuffel, & Puppe, 2011). Alternatively, the behavioural category could be related to physiological parameters through the physical activity required to perform the behaviour (metabolic requirements of activated tissues; Koolhaas et al, 2011;Major, 1998;Wascher et al, 2008), and even subtle activity such as body movements while resting or movement levels can affect heart rate (Major, 1998;Willener et al, 2014). Our results might fit the emotional arousal hypothesis better than the physical activity hypothesis.…”

Section: Behavioural Categorymentioning

confidence: 62%

Autonomic nervous system reactivity in a free-ranging mammal: effects of dominance rank and personality

Briefer

Oxley²,

McElligott

2015

Animal Behaviour

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Modulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity allows animals to effectively respond to internal and external stimuli in everyday challenges via changes in, for example, heart and respiration rate. Various factors, ranging from social such as dominance rank to internal such as personality or affective states can impact animal physiology. Our knowledge of the combinatory effects of social and internal factors on ANS basal activity and reactivity, and of the importance that each factor has in determining physiological parameters, is limited, particularly in nonhuman, free-ranging animals. In this study, we tested the effects of dominance rank and personality (assessed as exploration/avoidance and sociability) on the heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability of goats, Capra hircus, in relation to the category of behaviour performed. We collected heart rate data while the animals could freely move and interact with conspecifics. A model selection procedure showed that behavioural category and sociability, as well as their interaction effect, explained most of the variation in HR. HR was lowest, and heart rate variability highest, during affiliative interactions. The HR of less social goats increased more between the behaviour triggering the lowest HR and the behaviour triggering the highest HR, compared to the HR of more social goats, which was more stable. This suggests lower ANS reactivity (HR response) in social goats. Our results thus highlight the important relationships between personality types, physiology and the behaviour of free-ranging animals. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates heart rate and other physiological parameters (e.g. respiration rate, skin temperature). Its main function is to enable individuals to respond to changes in their environment and thus deal with everyday challenges by regulating energy expenditure through normal physiological fluctuations (i.e. Seyle, 1976). Additionally, the ANS plays a crucial role in the control of the neuronal or 'fight-or-flight' stress response, which prepares the animal to immediately react to internal and external stimuli perceived as threatening (Koolhaas et al., 2011). ANS basal activity (i.e. activity at rest) is related to factors that are fixed over the life of an individual such as species, sex or breed (Hezzell, Humm, Dennis, Agee, & Boswood, 2013; Lillywhite, Zippel, & Farrell, 1999), to factors that are subjected to slow changes over time such as body size or age (Noujaim et al., 2004; Stahl, 1967), or to daily changes (circadian rhythms; MacArthur, Johnston, & Geist, 1979). Furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that both ANS activity and reactivity (i.e. increase from baseline levels in response to an environmental stimulus; Matthews, 1986) can be related to social factors such as dominance rank

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Section: Behavioural Categorymentioning

confidence: 62%

Autonomic nervous system reactivity in a free-ranging mammal: effects of dominance rank and personality

Briefer

Oxley²,

McElligott

2015

Animal Behaviour

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“…Then, for each horse, we calculated the frequency of occurrences of crib-biting events per minute for every period (1-7; Table 2). From the videos of the tests, we scored the physical activity (movements) of the horse, because this behavior can potentially affect physiological parameters [27,30,36]. The duration of body movements was scored continuously ("State Events") using the Observer software XT v.11 (Noldus), and considered when the horse performed more than two steps [37].…”

Section: Behavioral Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The physiological consequences of crib-biting in horses in response to an ACTH challenge test

Freymond

Bardou

Briefer

et al. 2015

Physiology & Behavior

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• The function of stereotypic behavior (crib-biting) is not clear.• We used an ACTH challenge test to test the coping hypothesis of stereotypies.• We compared adrenal and sympathetic responses of stereotypic and control horses.• We found higher cortisol responses in the stereotypic group compared to controls.• Our results suggest that crib-biting is a coping strategy serving to reduce stress. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Stereotypies are repetitive and relatively invariant patterns of behavior, which are observed in a wide range of species in captivity. Stereotypic behavior occurs when environmental demands produce a physiological response that, if sustained for an extended period, exceeds the natural physiological regulatory capacity of the organism, particularly in situations that include unpredictability and uncontrollability. One hypothesis is that stereotypic behavior functions to cope with stressful environments, but the existing evidence is contradictory. To address the coping hypothesis of stereotypies, we triggered physiological reactions in 22 horses affected by stereotypic behavior (crib-biters) and 21 non-crib-biters (controls), using an ACTH challenge test. Following administration of an ACTH injection, we measured saliva cortisol every 30 min and heart rate (HR) continuously for a period of 3 h. We did not find any differences in HR or HR variability between the two groups, but crib-biters (Group CB) had significantly higher cortisol responses than controls (Group C; mean ± SD: CB, 5.84 ± 2.62 ng/ml, C, 4.76 ± 3.04 ng/ml). Moreover, crib-biters that did not perform the stereotypic behavior during the 3-hour test period (Group B) had significantly higher cortisol levels than controls, which was not the case of crib-biters showing stereotypic behavior (Group A) (B, 6.44 ± 2.38 ng/ml A, 5.58 ± 2.69 ng/ml). Our results suggest that crib-biting is a coping strategy that helps stereotypic individuals to reduce cortisol levels caused by stressful situations. We conclude that preventing stereotypic horses from crib-biting could be an inappropriate strategy to control this abnormal behavior, as it prevents individuals from coping with situations that they perceive as stressful.

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“…Among several qualitative or quantitative physical activity indices, acceleration is highly sensitive to subjects’ movement levels ( Willener et al, 2015 ). In particular, an acceleration index called dynamic body acceleration (DBA) is used in the field of wild animal ecology to quantify the three-dimensional movement of animals with accelerometers ( Wilson et al, 2006 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correcting the Activity-Specific Component of Heart Rate Variability Using Dynamic Body Acceleration Under Free-Moving Conditions

et al. 2018

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Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is a widely used technique to assess sympatho-vagal regulation in response to various internal or external stressors. However, HRV measurements under free-moving conditions are highly susceptible to subjects’ physical activity levels because physical activity alters energy metabolism, which inevitably modulates the cardiorespiratory system and thereby changes the sympatho-vagal balance, regardless of stressors. Thus, researchers must simultaneously quantify the effect of physical activity on HRV to reliably assess sympatho-vagal balance under free-moving conditions. In the present study, dynamic body acceleration (DBA), which was developed in the field of animal ecology as a quantitative proxy for activity-specific energy expenditure, was used as a factor to correct for physical activity when evaluating HRV in freely moving subjects. Body acceleration and heart inter-beat intervals were simultaneously measured in cattle and sheep, and the vectorial DBA and HRV parameters were evaluated at 5-min intervals. Next, the effects of DBA on the HRV parameters were statistically analyzed. The heart rate (HR) and most of the HRV parameters were affected by DBA in both animal species, and the inclusion of the effect of DBA in the HRV analysis greatly influenced the frequency domain and nonlinear HRV parameters. By removing the effect of physical activity quantified using DBA, we could fairly compare the stress levels of animals with different physical activity levels under different management conditions. Moreover, we analyzed and compared the HRV parameters before and after correcting for the mean HR, with and without inclusion of DBA. The results were somewhat unexpected, as the effect of DBA was a highly significant source of HRV also in parameters corrected for mean HR. In conclusion, the inclusion of DBA as a physical activity index is a simple and useful method for correcting the activity-specific component of HRV under free-moving conditions.

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Reassessment of the cardio-respiratory stress response, using the king penguin as a model

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Autonomic nervous system reactivity in a free-ranging mammal: effects of dominance rank and personality

Autonomic nervous system reactivity in a free-ranging mammal: effects of dominance rank and personality

The physiological consequences of crib-biting in horses in response to an ACTH challenge test

Correcting the Activity-Specific Component of Heart Rate Variability Using Dynamic Body Acceleration Under Free-Moving Conditions

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