Recognition and Alleviation of Pain and Distress in Laboratory Animals (1992) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Basis of Stress and Distress Not Induced by Pain
3 The Basis of Stress and Distress Not Induced by Pain
Pages 17-31
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From page 17... ...
For example, a stressful experiment might later trigger a fear response in an animal the next time it is removed from its cage, even in the absence of external stressors; focusing on the method of removal from the cage will probably not relieve the fear. Similarly, stress produced by social isolation, social aggression, inappropriate caging, or careless husbandry practices might be manifest when an animal is used in an experiment; addressing the experimental design is not likely to be very useful.
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From page 18... ...
Although stress has normal adaptive functions, stress in captive environments can lead to pathologic changes, such as gastric ulcers, and to outcomes that are maladaptive. When that occurs, it can be said that the animal is not only stressed, but distressed.
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From page 19... ...
To the extent that the monkey, the ocelot, and the sloth are active at different times during the daily cycle, differ in their social lives, and differ in the foods and other vital resources they require and in how they take these resources from the environment, they differ in their ecologies. The distinction between habitat and ecology can also be applied to captive environments.
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From page 20... ...
At the most basic level, birds and mammals indeed, all animals have fairly strict requirements with respect to nutrients, water, ambient temperature, humidity, illumination, background noise, and light-dark cycles. Although specific recommendations for dealing with those aspects of an animal's ecology in a captive setting are more often based on professional judgment and opinion than on systematic research, their importance for well-being is widely recognized, and they are usually treated straightforwardly as requirements of good husbandry (see NRC, 1985)
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From page 21... ...
More gregarious species have smaller personal space; that is, they are more tolerant of intruders than species that are normally solitary. Tolerance for the proximity of other animals is usually greater between members of opposite sex than between members of the same sex, between immature animals than between animals that are reproductively mature, and between immature and reproductively mature animals than between animals that are reproductively mature.
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From page 22... ...
However, the behavior of many adult animals deprived of social interaction in early life is obviously maladaptive. Self-mutilation, hair-pulling, stereotypic behaviors, extreme timidity or aggressiveness, and inability to mate or provide adequate care to offspring are examples of maladaptive behaviors that might result from social deprivation and be taken as de facto evidence of distress.
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From page 23... ...
Whatever distress results from depriving an animal of positive social stimulation will presumably be least severe for species or individual animals that are weakly gregarious, fearful, or highly aggressive, for older animals, and for animals whose social experience has been narrow. PREDATOR-PREY AND DEFENSIVE RELATIONSHIPS Predation concerns the capture and consumption for food of one animal by another.
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From page 24... ...
Such events are not uncommon in captive environments. Defensive reactions can be elicited by the mere presence of a perceived predator; but if exposure is repeated or prolonged and there are no additional adverse consequences, the response is likely to dissipate through habituation.
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From page 25... ...
Furthermore, although some behaviors might constitute distorted or compensatory responses to the frustration of a particular species-typical "need," as is generally supposed, others might simply be common elements in the species' normal repertoire that are readily available and easily performed in the captive environment. Even if a given pattern of behavior is abnormal for a species, it is often not clear whether it should be regarded as a sign that the animal is in a state of distress or has developed an adaptive mode of coping with constraints or tensions caused by the captive environment (Price, 1985; Dantzer, 19861.
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From page 26... ...
The amount of experimental data on feeding behavior in captive environments is much greater for the domestic variety of the Norway rat than for other species. The rat is a classic omnivore and is timid in its approaches to novel foods, so extrapolation from it to other species should be viewed with caution.
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From page 27... ...
Guinea pigs are capable of sustaining themselves on solid foods at birth; rabbits, rats, cats, and dogs take considerably longer; and in some primate species weaning is not completed before the sixth month of life orlater. The observation that an immature animal is ingesting small quantities of solid foods is not a reliable indication that it is capable of maintaining itself without milk.
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From page 28... ...
Predictability of Feeding Times Animals on a fixed feeding schedule come to anticipate the time of day when food will be provided. Substantial deviations from established schedules can cause frustration accompanied by increased activity in stress-responsive physiologic systems.
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From page 29... ...
Whether the stress is due to alterations in circadian rhythms, changes in familiar surroundings, noise and vibration, extreme temperature, dehydration, or some other cause is not known. However, standard practices should be implemented to ensure that transportation to and with a research institution follows accepted procedures and that newly arrived animals are given enough time to recover and to adapt to the new environment before they are placed in an experiment (Landi et al., 19821.
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From page 30... ...
Temperament and responsiveness differ widely, even among closely related species. Species that have departed only slightly from the wild state are likely to react more strongly to stressful conditions and to find more conditions stressful than species that have been selectively bred for adaptiveness to captive environments (Price, 19844.
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From page 31... ...
That concern should be clearly reflected in research designs. The aim of experiments on stress and distress in captive environments is not to create a facsimile of the natural habitat in appearance or function, but to identify aspects of captive environments that impinge most directly on processes related to stress and distress and to determine how they do so.
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