Pregabalin Alleviates Anxiety and Fear in Cats during Transportation and Veterinary Visits—A Clinical Field Study

Cats frequently suffer from anxiety related to travel and veterinary visits. One sequela is avoidance of veterinary visits and lack of adequate veterinary care. The objective of this study was to test clinical efficacy and safety of a novel formulation of a pregabalin 50 mg/mL oral solution for alleviation of anxiety and fear in cats during transport and veterinary visits. A total of 209 client-owned cats were given either a flavored pregabalin oral solution at the dosage of 5 mg/kg (n = 108 ) or an identical placebo (n = 101) approximately 90 min before placing them into the carrier and transporting them in a car for at least 20 min to a veterinary clinic. The treatment effect using a 5-point numerical rating scale was evaluated during transportation by the owner and during clinical examination by the veterinarian, both blinded to the treatment. In addition, to verify the owner assessment, an external expert blinded to the treatment and owner assessment evaluated the transportation video recordings using the same rating scale as the owner. Pregabalin 5 mg/kg statistically significantly decreased both travel- (p < 0.01) and veterinary-visit- (p < 0.01) related anxiety compared to the placebo. The external expert’s evaluation was in agreement with the owners’ assessment confirming the treatment effect during transportation (p < 0.01). Treatment was well tolerated with only a few cats showing transient slight incoordination and tiredness. The flavored oral solution formulation with a small dosing volume of 0.1 mL/kg was found by the owners to be user-friendly and was well-accepted by the cats. This study demonstrated that a single oral dosage of the novel pregabalin oral solution alleviates anxiety and fear related to transportation and veterinary visits in cats, thus providing practical aid for both owners and veterinarians to enable cat-friendly handling and improving the welfare of cats in situations they often perceive as very stressful

In Car Audio

This chapter presents implementations of advanced in Car Audio Applications. The system is composed by three main different applications regarding the In Car listening and communication experience. Starting from a high level description of the algorithms, several implementations on different levels of hardware abstraction are presented, along with empirical results on both the design process undergone and the performance results achieved

Human Analogue Safe Haven Effect of the Owner : Behavioural and Heart Rate Response to Stressful Social Stimuli in Dogs

The secure base and safe haven effects of the attachment figure are central features of the human attachment theory. Recently, conclusive evidence for human analogue attachment behaviours in dogs has been provided, however, the owner’s security-providing role in danger has not been directly supported. We investigated the relationship between the behavioural and cardiac response in dogs (N = 30) while being approached by a threatening stranger in separation vs. in the presence of the owner, presented in a balanced order. Non-invasive telemetric measures of heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) data during the threatening approaches was compared to periods before and after the encounters. Dogs that showed distress vocalisation during separation (N = 18) and that growled or barked at the stranger during the threatening approach (N = 17) were defined as behaviourally reactive in the given situation. While characteristic stress vocalisations were emitted during separations, the absence of the owner did not have an effect on dogs’ mean HR, but significantly increased the HRV. The threatening approach increased dogs’ mean HR, with a parallel decrease in the HRV, particularly in dogs that were behaviourally reactive to the encounter. Importantly, the HR increase was significantly less pronounced when dogs faced the stranger in the presence of the owner. Moreover, the test order, whether the dog encountered the stranger first with or without its owner, also proved important: HR increase associated with the encounter in separation seemed to be attenuated in dogs that faced the stranger first in the presence of their owner. We provided evidence for human analogue safe haven effect of the owner in a potentially dangerous situation. Similarly to parents of infants, owners can provide a buffer against stress in dogs, which can even reduce the effect of a subsequent encounter with the same threatening stimuli later when the owner is not present

Cerebral cortex activity in freely moving sheep using a wireless CW fNIRS system: preliminary results

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was recently applied in studies involving animals, showing great potential as, to date, this is the only technique that can be used to non-invasively measure hemodynamic brain responses in freely moving animals [1\u20133]. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cerebral activity of freely moving sheep undergoing different tasks (motor and somatosensory). Four one-year-old Sarda ewes were exposed to two different stimuli: a motor task (walking), and a sudden noise. To measure the changes of oxyhemoglobin ([\u394O2Hb]) and deoxyhemoglobin ([\u394HHb]) concentration, a mobile and miniaturized wireless CW fNIRS system (Octamon, Artinis Medical Systems, The Netherlands) was used. Sensors were applied on the forehead of the sheep depilated head and held in place with a customized head cap (Fig.1(a)). Four transmitters and two receivers (four channels in total), with pairs of transmitter-receiver at short (10 mm) and long (30 mm) distance, were used to cover the left and right hemisphere of the sheep head. The intensity of the light after transmission through tissue was recorded. The optical density was converted into [\u394O2Hb] and [\u394HHb] by the modified Lambert-Beer law. Our result of the motor task showed a decrease of [\u394O2Hb] and increase of [\u394HHb] in both hemispheres when sheep were walking (Fig.1(b)). For the sudden noise test, both hemispheres showed a transient decrease when the stimulus began, followed by a gradual increase in [\u394O2Hb] concentration (Fig.1(c)). Our preliminary results suggest that fNIRS has the potential to non-invasively measure cerebral cortex activity in free moving sheep undergoing different tasks. Combining behavioral indicators with these innovative measurements will strengthen knowledge on animal cognition and perception of different environmental situations, thus enhancing their welfare. This work was supported by MIUR-PRIN2015 (Grant 2015Y5W9YP)

Familiarity bias and physiological responses in contagious yawning by dogs support link to empathy

In humans, the susceptibility to yawn contagion has been theoretically and empirically related to our capacity for empathy. Because of its relevance to evolutionary biology, this phenomenon has been the focus of recent investigations in nonhuman species. In line with the empathic hypothesis, contagious yawning has been shown to correlate with the level of social attachment in several primate species. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have also shown the ability to yawn contagiously. To date, however, the social modulation of dog contagious yawning has received contradictory support and alternative explanations (i.e., yawn as a mild distress response) could explain positive evidence. The present study aims to replicate contagious yawning in dogs and to discriminate between the two possible mediating mechanisms (i.e., empathic vs. distress related response). Twenty-five dogs observed familiar (dog’s owner) and unfamiliar human models (experimenter) acting out a yawn or control mouth movements. Concurrent physiological measures (heart rate) were additionally monitored for twenty-one of the subjects. The occurrence of yawn contagion was significantly higher during the yawning condition than during the control mouth movements. Furthermore, the dogs yawned more frequently when watching the familiar model than the unfamiliar one demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlated with the level of emotional proximity. Moreover, subjects’ heart rate did not differ among conditions suggesting that the phenomenon of contagious yawning in dogs is unrelated to stressful events. Our findings are consistent with the view that contagious yawning is modulated by affective components of the behavior and may indicate that rudimentary forms of empathy could be present in domesticated dogs

Can functional near-infrared spectroscopy (FNIRS) give us reliable insights on sheep brain activity?

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a noninvasive optical technique for monitoring the concentration of oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin in human cerebral cortex. Recently, fNIRS has been increasingly used in animal studies, but research is needed to improve measurement accuracy and result reliability (e.g. rejecting possible extracerebral contributions). A wearable continuous wave (CW) fNIRS system (Octamon, Artinis Medical Systems, The Netherlands) was used to measure the cerebral activity of ten freely moving ewes (Sarda breed, 8-month-old) undergoing a motor task (30s baseline, 30s walking; ten repetitions) and a startling test (after 30s baseline an umbrella was opened in front of the sheep for 3s, followed by 60s recovery; five repetitions). fNIRS sensors were applied on the depilated sheep forehead and held in place with a customized head cap. Two pairs of transmitter-receiver at short (10mm) and long (30mm) distance were used to record light intensity at two wavelengths (760nm, 850nm) from the left and right hemisphere. Data were fitted to a CW model for photon diffusion in a two-layer geometry to estimate absorption changes with respect to the baseline in the bottom layer (representing cerebral cortex) and in the upper layer (representing tissues above brain: scalp, skull, CSF). Upper layer thickness was derived from anatomical measurements, while baseline optical properties (absorption and reduced scattering coefficients) were derived from time-resolved reflectance measurements on the same sheep. Beer\u2019s law was then used to calculate oxygenated haemoglobin changes (\u394O2Hb) and deoxygenated haemoglobin changes (\u394HHb) in both layers. Results of the motor task showed no changes in the upper layer and a canonical response in the bottom layer (\u394O2Hb increase and \u394HHb decrease) in both hemispheres when sheep were walking (Fig 1a). For the startling test, we found no changes in the upper layer and, after the stimulus, a canonical response only in right bottom layer (\u394O2Hb increase and \u394HHb decrease) (Fig 1b). These results confirm that CW fNIRS allowed to non-invasively measure cerebral cortex activity in freely moving sheep and that the use of short and long distance pairs of transmitter-receiver, coupled to a two-layer model for photon diffusion, was useful to reject extracerebral contributions. Measuring cerebral areas activation has the potential to give us new insights in the study of animal emotion and welfare. This study was approved by the Italian National Ethical Commission (authorization n\ub0457/2016-PR) and supported by MIUR-PRIN2015 (Grant 2015Y5W9YP)

The Effect of Genetic and Environmental Variation on Genital Size in Male Drosophila: Canalized but Developmentally Unstable

The genitalia of most male arthropods scale hypoallometrically with body size, that is they are more or less the same size across large and small individuals in a population. Such scaling is expected to arise when genital traits show less variation than somatic traits in response to factors that generate size variation among individuals in a population. Nevertheless, there have been few studies directly examining the relative sensitivity of genital and somatic traits to factors that affect their size. Such studies are key to understanding genital evolution and the evolution of morphological scaling relationships more generally. Previous studies indicate that the size of genital traits in male Drosophila melanogaster show a relatively low response to variation in environmental factors that affect trait size. Here we show that the size of genital traits in male fruit flies also exhibit a relatively low response to variation in genetic factors that affect trait size. Importantly, however, this low response is only to genetic factors that affect body and organ size systemically, not those that affect organ size autonomously. Further, we show that the genital traits do not show low levels of developmental instability, which is the response to stochastic developmental errors that also influence organ size autonomously. We discuss these results in the context of current hypotheses on the proximate and ultimate mechanisms that generate genital hypoallometry

Analysis of dogs’ sleep patterns using convolutional neural networks

Video-based analysis is one of the most important tools of animal behavior and animal welfare scientists. While automatic analysis systems exist for many species, this problem has not yet been adequately addressed for one of the most studied species in animal science—dogs. In this paper we describe a system developed for analyzing sleeping patterns of kenneled dogs, which may serve as indicator of their welfare. The system combines convolutional neural networks with classical data processing methods, and works with very low quality video from cameras installed in dogs shelters

Dung removal increases under higher dung beetle functional diversity regardless of grazing intensification

Dung removal by macrofauna such as dung beetles is an important process for nutrient cycling in pasturelands. Intensification of farming practices generally reduces species and functional diversity of terrestrial invertebrates, which may negatively affect ecosystem services. Here, we investigate the effects of cattle-grazing intensification on dung removal by dung beetles in field experiments replicated in 38 pastures around the world. Within each study site, we measured dung removal in pastures managed with low- and high-intensity regimes to assess between-regime differences in dung beetle diversity and dung removal, whilst also considering climate and regional variations. The impacts of intensification were heterogeneous, either diminishing or increasing dung beetle species richness, functional diversity, and dung removal rates. The effects of beetle diversity on dung removal were more variable across sites than within sites. Dung removal increased with species richness across sites, while functional diversity consistently enhanced dung removal within sites, independently of cattle grazing intensity or climate. Our findings indicate that, despite intensified cattle stocking rates, ecosystem services related to decomposition and nutrient cycling can be maintained when a functionally diverse dung beetle community inhabits the human-modified landscape