Stereotypies and suffering

Mason, Georgia

doi:10.1016/0376-6357(91)90013-p

Cited by 227 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Stereotypic behaviors occur mostly in unfavorable conditions (Mason, 1991; and are considered as a reliable indicator of a poor psychological well-being in primates (Crockett et al, 1995). Our findings on adult riding school horses (see also Hausberger et al, 2012) go along with this idea, because the "players" showed more signs of a poor welfare state than the non-players.…”

Section: Adult Play As An Indicator Of Welfare?supporting

confidence: 72%

Animal Welfare: Could Adult Play be a False Friend?

Blois‐Heulin¹,

Rochais²,

Camus³

et al. 2015

AB&C

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-There is no consensus regarding the functions of play. As play behavior is a characteristic of young stages of development, it has been suggested that the higher prevalence of adult play observed in domestic animals could be the result of their "neotenic retardation." Functional hypotheses have dealt with the long term benefits, such as "rehearsal," "motor training" for future adult competencies or "training for the unexpected." However, there is little consistent experimental evidence favoring a particular hypothesis. The present study aimed to test the functional significance of adult play as a potential reliable indicator of good welfare, a by-product of domestication or a tool for social cohesion. Observations of both a domestic species (the horse) and wild/captive animals (cercopithecids) confirm the literature data that show the greater prevalence of adult play in the domestic/captive situations. This convergence between a domestic and a wild species argue against the idea that adult play may be a mere product of domestication. Moreover, animals living in naturalistic situations had the same low level of adult play as observed in wild animals suggesting that captive/domestic animals do not play only because they are stress free or well fed. Play is not a reliable indicator of welfare: Horses and adult macaques that played the most were also those that exhibited the greatest signals of poor welfare as stereotypic behaviors. Furthermore, adult play was more frequent at times of social disturbances and instability. Adult play is a sign showing that the adult organism needs to evacuate stress.

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Section: Adult Play As An Indicator Of Welfare?supporting

confidence: 72%

Animal Welfare: Could Adult Play be a False Friend?

Blois‐Heulin¹,

Rochais²,

Camus³

et al. 2015

AB&C

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“…Cage stereotypies are generally considered an animal welfare issue [44,58]. Such ethical concerns will be increased by this evidence suggesting that caging causes striatal dysfunction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for a relationship between cage stereotypies and behavioural disinhibition in laboratory rodents

Garner

Mason

2002

Behavioural Brain Research

217

163

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Cage stereotypies */abnormal, repetitive, unvarying and apparently functionless behaviours */are common in many captive animals, sometimes resulting in self-injury or decreased reproductive success. However, a general mechanistic or neurophysiological understanding of cage stereotypies has proved elusive. In contrast, stereotypies in human mental disorder, or those induced by drugs or brain lesions, are well understood, and are thought to result from the disinhibition of behavioural selection by the basal ganglia. In this study, we found that the cage stereotypies of captive bank voles also correlate with signs of altered response selection by the basal ganglia. Stereotypic bar-mouthing in the caged voles correlated with inappropriate responding in extinction learning, impairments of response timing, evidence of a knowledge-action dissociation, increased rates of behavioural activation, and hyperactivity. Furthermore, all these signs intercorrelated, implicating a single underlying deficit consistent with striatal disinhibition of response selection. Bar-mouthing thus appears fundamentally similar to the stereotypies of autists, schizophrenics, and subjects treated with amphetamine or basal ganglial lesions. These results represent the first evidence for a neural substrate of cage stereotypy. They also suggest that stereotypic animals may experience novel forms of psychological distress, and that stereotypy might well represent a potential confound in many behavioural experiments. #

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“…Stereotypies are mostly absent in the wild, relatively infrequent in large, environmentally enriched enclosures, and most common in barren and/or physically restricting cages (Mason 1991a). They are therefore often considered to indicate poor welfare (Berkson 1968;Mason 1991bMason , 2001Wiedenmayer 1996Wiedenmayer , 1997.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, traditional approaches, which implicitly consider stereotypies the product of placing a normal animal in an abnormal environment, cannot account for all features of the behaviour (e.g. Mason 1991bMason , 1993. For example, individuals with cage stereotypies sometimes show other odd behavioural traits, such as harming their own young (e.g.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Stereotypic route-tracing in experimentally caged songbirds correlates with general behavioural disinhibition

2003

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Repetitive, unvarying and apparently functionless behaviours called stereotypies are common in caged animals, but the mechanisms of cage stereotypy have remained elusive. We found that stereotypies correlate with a sign of altered brain functioning, the general disinhibition of behaviour, found in stereotyping human patients and animals treated with psychostimulants. We investigated route-tracing stereotypy in blue tits, Parus caeruleus, and marsh tits, P. palustris, caged in a behavioural research laboratory. In experiment 1, stereotypy correlated with disinhibition of responses, shown as persistent responding in extinction learning. In experiment 2a, stereotypy in blue tits correlated with repetitive sequence generation on a 'gambling task' that specifically measures disinhibited striatal functioning in humans and correlates with stereotypy in autistic and schizophrenic patients. In experiment 2b, the behavioural disinhibition correlated with stereotypy also affected food-storing behaviour in marsh tits, in particular their response to cache pilfering. In experiment 3, the sequencing of nonstereotypic home cage behaviour was correlated with stereotypy. Finally, changes in stereotypy induced by environmental enrichment correlated with changes in these measures of altered behavioural control. These results suggest that housing conditions that cause stereotypy thus alter many aspects of the behavioural control of caged subjects, mediated by altered striatal functioning. The implications for understanding cage stereotypies in laboratory, farm and zoo animals, and for laboratory-based behavioural experiments, are discussed. We suggest that improving housing conditions so that cage stereotypies do not develop would enhance the validity of laboratory-based behavioural research.

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Stereotypies and suffering

Cited by 227 publications

References 54 publications

Animal Welfare: Could Adult Play be a False Friend?

Animal Welfare: Could Adult Play be a False Friend?

Evidence for a relationship between cage stereotypies and behavioural disinhibition in laboratory rodents

Stereotypic route-tracing in experimentally caged songbirds correlates with general behavioural disinhibition

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