Cargando…
The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep
When an individual attends to certain types of information more than others, the behavior is termed an attention bias. The occurrence of attention biases in humans and animals can depend on their affective states. Based on evidence from the human literature and prior studies in sheep, we hypothesize...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2019
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6557257/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31211015 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7033 |
_version_ | 1783425445512871936 |
---|---|
author | Monk, Jessica E. Lee, Caroline Belson, Sue Colditz, Ian G. Campbell, Dana L.M. |
author_facet | Monk, Jessica E. Lee, Caroline Belson, Sue Colditz, Ian G. Campbell, Dana L.M. |
author_sort | Monk, Jessica E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | When an individual attends to certain types of information more than others, the behavior is termed an attention bias. The occurrence of attention biases in humans and animals can depend on their affective states. Based on evidence from the human literature and prior studies in sheep, we hypothesized that an attention bias test could discriminate between pharmacologically-induced positive and negative affective states in sheep. The test measured allocation of attention between a threat and a positive stimulus using key measures of looking time and vigilance. Eighty 7-year-old Merino ewes were allocated to one of four treatment groups; Anxious (m-chlorophenylpiperazine), Calm (diazepam), Happy (morphine) and Control (saline). Drugs were administered 30 min prior to attention bias testing. The test was conducted in a 4 × 4.2 m arena with high opaque walls. An approximately life-size photograph of a sheep was positioned on one wall of the arena (positive stimulus). A small window with a retractable opaque cover was positioned on the opposite wall, behind which a dog was standing quietly (threat). The dog was visible for 3 s after a single sheep entered the arena, then the window was covered and the dog was removed. Sheep then remained in the arena for 3 min while behaviors were recorded. Key behaviors included time looking toward the dog wall or photo wall, duration of vigilance behavior and latency to become non-vigilant. In contrast with our hypothesis, no significant differences were found between treatment groups for duration of vigilance or looking behaviors, although Anxious sheep tended to be more vigilant than Control animals (P < 0.1) and had a longer latency to become non-vigilant (P < 0.001). A total of 24 of 80 animals were vigilant for the entire test duration. This censoring of data may explain why no differences were detected between groups for vigilance duration. Overall, a lack of difference between groups may suggest the test cannot discriminate positive and negative states in sheep. We suggest that the censoring of vigilance duration data, the use of insufficient drug doses, the potential influence of background noise and the age of the sheep may explain a lack of difference between groups. Due to these potential effects, it remains unclear whether the attention bias test can detect positive states in sheep. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6557257 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65572572019-06-17 The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep Monk, Jessica E. Lee, Caroline Belson, Sue Colditz, Ian G. Campbell, Dana L.M. PeerJ Agricultural Science When an individual attends to certain types of information more than others, the behavior is termed an attention bias. The occurrence of attention biases in humans and animals can depend on their affective states. Based on evidence from the human literature and prior studies in sheep, we hypothesized that an attention bias test could discriminate between pharmacologically-induced positive and negative affective states in sheep. The test measured allocation of attention between a threat and a positive stimulus using key measures of looking time and vigilance. Eighty 7-year-old Merino ewes were allocated to one of four treatment groups; Anxious (m-chlorophenylpiperazine), Calm (diazepam), Happy (morphine) and Control (saline). Drugs were administered 30 min prior to attention bias testing. The test was conducted in a 4 × 4.2 m arena with high opaque walls. An approximately life-size photograph of a sheep was positioned on one wall of the arena (positive stimulus). A small window with a retractable opaque cover was positioned on the opposite wall, behind which a dog was standing quietly (threat). The dog was visible for 3 s after a single sheep entered the arena, then the window was covered and the dog was removed. Sheep then remained in the arena for 3 min while behaviors were recorded. Key behaviors included time looking toward the dog wall or photo wall, duration of vigilance behavior and latency to become non-vigilant. In contrast with our hypothesis, no significant differences were found between treatment groups for duration of vigilance or looking behaviors, although Anxious sheep tended to be more vigilant than Control animals (P < 0.1) and had a longer latency to become non-vigilant (P < 0.001). A total of 24 of 80 animals were vigilant for the entire test duration. This censoring of data may explain why no differences were detected between groups for vigilance duration. Overall, a lack of difference between groups may suggest the test cannot discriminate positive and negative states in sheep. We suggest that the censoring of vigilance duration data, the use of insufficient drug doses, the potential influence of background noise and the age of the sheep may explain a lack of difference between groups. Due to these potential effects, it remains unclear whether the attention bias test can detect positive states in sheep. PeerJ Inc. 2019-06-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6557257/ /pubmed/31211015 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7033 Text en © 2019 Monk et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Agricultural Science Monk, Jessica E. Lee, Caroline Belson, Sue Colditz, Ian G. Campbell, Dana L.M. The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep |
title | The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep |
title_full | The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep |
title_fullStr | The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep |
title_full_unstemmed | The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep |
title_short | The influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep |
title_sort | influence of pharmacologically-induced affective states on attention bias in sheep |
topic | Agricultural Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6557257/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31211015 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7033 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT monkjessicae theinfluenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT leecaroline theinfluenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT belsonsue theinfluenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT colditziang theinfluenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT campbelldanalm theinfluenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT monkjessicae influenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT leecaroline influenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT belsonsue influenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT colditziang influenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep AT campbelldanalm influenceofpharmacologicallyinducedaffectivestatesonattentionbiasinsheep |