Clinical measurements performed during alfaxalone total intravenous anaesthesia for radiography and neurophysiological investigations in dogs.

Objective: To describe clinically relevant, physiological measurements collected during a 3 hour duration of alfaxalone total intravenous anaesthesia.

Study Design: Case series.

Animals: A total of 112 client-owned middle-aged or older dogs.

On the evolution and optimality of mood States.

Moods can be regarded as fluctuating dispositions to make positive and negative evaluations. Developing an evolutionary approach to mood as an adaptive process, we consider the structure and function of such states in guiding behavioural decisions regarding the acquisition of resources and the avoidance of harm in different circumstances. We use a drift diffusion model of decision making to consider the information required by individuals to optimise decisions between two alternatives, such as whether to approach or withdraw from a stimulus that may be life enhancing or life threatening.

Preliminary investigations into the analgesic effects of topical ocular 1% morphine solution in dogs and cats.

Objective: To perform preliminary evaluations into the ocular analgesic effect of topical 1% morphine in a clinical setting and to determine onset, duration and complications.

Study Design: Prospective, randomised, blinded clinical study.

Animals: Twenty six dogs and seventeen cats, all client-owned.

Decision-making under uncertainty: biases and Bayesians.

Animals (including humans) often face circumstances in which the best choice of action is not certain. Environmental cues may be ambiguous, and choices may be risky. This paper reviews the theoretical side of decision-making under uncertainty, particularly with regard to unknown risk (ambiguity).

Do psychological and physiological stressors alter the acute pain response to castration and tail docking in lambs?

Objective: To investigate whether events that may be stressful to young lambs, including simulated infection or social isolation, modulate pain experienced by lambs following castration and tail docking (C/D).

Study Design: Randomised, controlled, prospective study.

Animals: Fifty male lambs born to 46 second-parity Mule ewes.

Tail-biting: a new perspective.

Tail-biting data from different studies are difficult to compare because a range of definitions of tail-biting behaviour and tail-biting lesions are used. Although records from abattoirs provide a large database, their usefulness is restricted as tail-biting is under-recorded and environmental and husbandry factors associated with the behaviour are unlikely to be known. Both farm and abattoir data provide no information on the number of pigs biting, only those bitten.

Mammalian choices: combining fast-but-inaccurate and slow-but-accurate decision-making systems.

Empirical findings suggest that the mammalian brain has two decision-making systems that act at different speeds. We represent the faster system using standard signal detection theory. We represent the slower (but more accurate) cortical system as the integration of sensory evidence over time until a certain level of confidence is reached.

Towards humane end points: behavioural changes precede clinical signs of disease in a Huntington's disease model.

The number of animals used in science is increasing, bringing a concomitant obligation to minimize suffering. For animals with progressive conditions, euthanasia at a 'humane end point' is advised if the end point is scientifically valid, predictive and accurate. Our aim was to test the hypothesis that behavioural changes would reliably precede clinical signs of disease in a progressive neurological model, using retrospective analysis.

Removing individual rats affects indicators of welfare in the remaining group members.

The removal of individuals from social groups, e.g. in order to maintain appropriate stocking densities in groups of rapidly growing young laboratory rats, is often necessary.