Similar rewarding effects of testosterone in mice rated as short and long attack latency individuals

Aggression seen on mixing of young pigs is a major welfare concern in modern farming. One solution may be to reduce the likelihood of aggression within a group by using combinations of individuals that facilitate rapid integration. This idea has been investigated by Mendl and Erhard (1997) using pigs with various levels of aggressiveness. An attack latency test was used to measure individual aggressiveness. Experimental pigs were placed in a familiar pen with an unfamiliar pig and the time taken to attack (i.e. attempt to fight) the intruder measured. In a substantial number of tests (e.g. 61% in the present study) no attack occurs in the time allowed (5 minutes) These pigs vary in their interactions with the intruder, ranging from no interest at all to persistent interest with isolated aggressive acts but no escalation to fighting (personal observation). The aim of this study was to investigate social behaviour throughout the test, thereby allowing a more detailed analysis of aggressiveness to be made.

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Studies in Wild House Mice: Genotype-Environment Interactions for Attack Latency

Netherlands Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1163/002829685x00118 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 35 (1-2) ◽

pp. 155-169 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

D.J. Dijk ◽

G.A. Van Oortmerssen ◽

I. Benus

Keyword(s):

House Mice ◽

Wild House Mice ◽

Attack Latency

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Social choices in farm animals: to fight or not to fight?

BSAP Occasional Publication ◽

10.1017/s0263967x00043366 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 20 ◽

pp. 45-53 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

M. Mendl ◽

H.W. Erhard

Keyword(s):

Social Status ◽

Social Groups ◽

Farm Animals ◽

Alternative Strategies ◽

Aggressive Interactions ◽

Fighting Ability ◽

Young Pigs ◽

Attack Latency ◽

Free Ranging ◽

Mixed Groups

AbstractFrom an animal production and welfare perspective, an important social choice made by farm animals is whether and how vigorously to fight others. The choice to fight (i.e. simultaneous escalated aggression by both contestants) may result in severe injury when unfamiliar animals first meet or compete for highly valued resources. Game theory models of aggressive interactions predict that animals have evolved to stop or avoid fighting when they assess their chances of winning a contest to be poor. Assessment may occur during or before a fight. If it occurs before a fight, reliable cues of fighting ability must exist. If farm animals can establish relative social status by assessment prior to fighting, it may be possible to construct social groups which contain individuals of differing abilities such that most disputes are resolved through assessment and levels of damaging aggression are kept low. Social status appears to be established by assessment rather than fighting in free-ranging deer and sheep when asymmetries exist in reliable cues of their fighting abilities such as roaring rate and horn size. However, there have been few detailed studies of other farmed species and findings are equivocal. Work on young pigs suggests that, in pair-wise encounters, individuals are unable to assess weight-related asymmetries in their abilities without fighting. However, recent studies of groups of pigs suggest that some form of assessment prior to fighting may occur. Individuals were classified as high (H) or low (L) aggressive on the basis of their behaviour in an attack latency test. When litters of H pigs were mixed with litters of L pigs, significantly fewer pairs of unfamiliar pigs fought than when newly mixed groups were made up of litters of H pigs only, or litters of L pigs only. Thus, fighting was least frequent when there was a marked asymmetry in the aggressiveness of unfamiliar individuals. Another study raised the possibility that H and L pigs may be following alternative strategies which, under certain circumstances, are similarly beneficial in welfare and production terms. Further work is required to substantiate these findings and to determine whether aggressiveness is a reliable cue of fighting ability and, if so, how it is manifest and assessed.

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Aggressive and non-aggressive personalities differ in oxidative status in selected lines of mice ( Mus musculus )

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2007.0513 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 119-122 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

David Costantini ◽

Claudio Carere ◽

Doretta Caramaschi ◽

Jaap M Koolhaas

Keyword(s):

Coping Strategy ◽

Reactive Oxygen ◽

Oxidative Status ◽

Reactive Oxygen Metabolites ◽

Stress Responsiveness ◽

And Coping ◽

Animal Personalities ◽

Attack Latency ◽

Pituitary Adrenal Axis ◽

Oxygen Metabolites

Mice selected for aggression and coping (long attack latency (LAL), reactive coping strategy; short attack latency (SAL), pro-active coping strategy) are a useful model for studying the physiological background of animal personalities. These mice also show a differential stress responsiveness, especially in terms of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis reactivity, to various challenges. Since the stress response can increase the production of reactive oxygen species, we predicted that the basic oxidative status of the lines could differ. We found that LAL showed higher serum antioxidant capacity (OXY) than SAL, while no differences emerged for reactive oxygen metabolites (ROMs) or the balance between ROMs and OXY, reflecting oxidative stress. Moreover, the lines showed inverse relationships between ROMs or OXY and body mass corrected for age. The results indicate that variation in oxidative status is heritable and linked to personality. This suggests that different animal personalities may be accompanied by differences in oxidative status, which may predict differences in longevity.

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Hippocampal Serotonin Responses in Short and Long Attack Latency Mice

Journal of Neuroendocrinology ◽

10.1046/j.0007-1331.2001.00770.x ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 234-239 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

E. Van Riel ◽

O. C. Meijer ◽

A. H. Veenema ◽

M. Joëls

Keyword(s):

Attack Latency

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Routine Formation and Flexibility in Social and Non-Social Behaviour of Aggressive and Non-Aggressive Male Mice

Behaviour ◽

10.1163/156853990x00185 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 112 (3-4) ◽

pp. 176-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 135

Author(s):

G.A. VAN OORTMERSSEN ◽

S. DEN DAAS ◽

J.M. Koolhaas ◽

R.F. Benus

Keyword(s):

Social Situation ◽

Phenotypic Selection ◽

Male Mice ◽

Y Maze ◽

The Social ◽

Two Factors ◽

Aggressive Male ◽

Selection For ◽

Attack Latency ◽

The Relationship

AbstractTo investigate the relationship between aggression and routine-like behaviour the response of male mice of bidirectionally selected lines for attack latency to a change in the social and non-social environment has been measured. In a non-social situation the extent of routine-like behaviour was measured in a Y-maze in which only one of the two arms gave access to the food compartments. The number of errors made in response to reversal of the arm that was blocked was taken as indicator for the degree of routine formation. Males of the short attack latency (SAL) line made significantly more errors, and hence were more routine-like in their performance, than mice of the long attack latency (LAL) line. Males of the LAL line that nevertheless had short attack latencies (i. e. aggressive LAL mice) turned out to be flexible in their behaviour; their response was similar to that of the non-aggressive LAL males. In a social situation SAL and aggressive LAL mice were used to investigate routine formation in attacking behaviour. The males were given different amounts of experience with male opponents after which their own female was introduced as opponent. The more extended the experience with male intruders was, the more SAL males subsequently attacked their female. In contrast, LAL mice appropriately changed their behaviour towards the female opponent. Thus, the attacking behaviour of SAL mice gets routine-like, whereas that of LAL males remains flexible. It is concluded that selection for attack latency generally coincides with selection for routine-like behaviour, suggesting that these two factors are influenced by many of the same genes. Regarding the fact that aggressive males of the LAL line show flexible behaviour, it may be proposed that with the phenotypic selection for attack latency there has in fact been selected for a mechanism that determines the organization (routine-like vs flexible) of behaviour.

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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN BEHAVIOUR: A TEST OF 'COPING STYLE' DOES NOT PREDICT RESIDENT-INTRUDER AGGRESSIVENESS IN PIGS

Behaviour ◽

10.1163/15685390260437326 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 139 (9) ◽

pp. 1175-1194 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Richard D'Eath ◽

Charlotte Burn

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Coping Style ◽

Coping Styles ◽

Continuous Distribution ◽

Distribution Data ◽

Vertebrate Species ◽

Social Responses ◽

Good Repeatability ◽

Attack Latency ◽

Resident Intruder

AbstractTemperament traits in animals are those which are stable across time and predictive of behaviour in other situations. Individuals can be identified as showing either active (pro-active) or passive (re-active) responses to a variety of challenges, and these are often referred to as 'coping styles'. Although most studied in rodents, coping styles are found in a variety of vertebrate species. In rodents, the resident-intruder aggressiveness test is a key measure of coping style, whereas in pigs, several recent studies have used a 'backtest' as the key measure of coping: A piglet is held on its back for one minute and the frequency of struggling bouts ('escape attempts') is recorded. In this study, we compared pig behaviour in backtests performed on 3 and 9 days of age, with aggressiveness was measured using 2 resident-intruder tests between 16 and 19 days post-weaning. A smaller unfamiliar intruder was introduced into part of the resident pig's home pen, and resident attack latency was recorded. Struggling bout frequency in the backtests showed a unimodal distribution. Data were analysed both as a continuous distribution and by comparing only the piglets from either extreme of the distribution (for comparison with other studies, top and bottom 25%). There was good repeatability of outcome (struggling frequency) over the two backtests, and over the two resident-intruder tests (attack latency and occurrence of resident attacks). However, no relationship was found between behaviour in the backtests and aggression in the resident-intruder tests, despite exhaustive analysis. Other authors have found that pigs show consistent responses to challenges, suggesting a degree of stable temperament. In line with the present findings though, most found no correlation between social and non-social responses. Other published experiments show that in pigs, the backtest can predict several physiological differences characteristic of coping styles. However, the present study shows that in pigs, aggressiveness and struggling in a backtest are not correlated, suggesting that they do not represent different expressions of the same underlying 'coping' trait.

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Electrolytic lesions of the bilateral ventrolateral orbital cortex not only directly reduce depression-like behavior but also decreased desperate behavior induced by chronic unpredicted mild stress in rats

BMC Neuroscience ◽

10.1186/s12868-021-00677-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Zheng Chu ◽

Wei Han ◽

Peng Liu ◽

Fei Liu ◽

Gang Lei ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Learned Helplessness ◽

Emotional Regulation ◽

Forced Swimming Test ◽

Emotional Behavior ◽

Mild Stress ◽

Orbital Cortex ◽

Plus Maze ◽

Electrolytic Lesions ◽

Swimming Test ◽

Attack Latency

Abstract Background Previous studies have revealed that ventrolateral orbital cortex (VLO) may play an important role in the regulation of emotional behavior. However, it is not known what effect VLO damage will have on emotion regulation. Results Data showed that damage of VLO increased the anxiety-like behavior in open field test and elevated plus maze, and decreased the depressive behavior in forced swimming test and learned helplessness test. Besides, the impulsive aggressive behaviors were also increased while the attack latency decreased after VLO lesion. What’s more, damage of VLO decreased depressive behaviors induced by chronic unpredicted mild stress in rats. Conclusions These results suggest that the integrity of VLO plays an important role in emotional regulation, and the damage of VLO may inhibit the development of depression-like behavior.

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Chemical Prey Preference Polymorphism in Newborn Garter Snakes Thamnophis Sir Talis

Behaviour ◽

10.1163/156853975x00047 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 52 (3-4) ◽

pp. 202-224 ◽

Cited By ~ 40

Author(s):

Gordon M. Burghardt

Keyword(s):

Thamnophis Sirtalis ◽

Distilled Water ◽

Garter Snakes ◽

Relative Preference ◽

Feeding Experience ◽

Individual Worm ◽

Ranking Procedures ◽

Highly Correlated ◽

Tongue Flicking ◽

Attack Latency

AbstractNewborn, previously unfed garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) respond with prey attack and tongue flicking to water based extracts prepared from the surface substances of normally eaten prey and presented on cotton swabs. The present experiments demonstrate reliable individual differences in preferred stimuli among members of the same litter. (I) Of 12 snakes tested on six different days with redworm extract, minnow extract, and distilled water, six responded reliably more to worm and one reliably more to minnow. Redworm was overall more effective than minnow. Using two ranking procedures, individual responsivity to redworm was not correlated with responsivity to minnow. Although distilled water was relatively ineffective, correlations of individual snake scores to extracts and water were high and often significant, in contrast to the low correlations between extracts. (2) Of an entire litter of 13 snakes tested on seven days with extracts from two species of earthworms and two species of fish, 11 responded significantly more to worm extracts and one significantly more to fish extracts. The two worm extracts gave almost identical overall scores and the same occurred for the two fish extracts, with the worm being more effective. While individual responsivities to the two worm or two fish extracts were highly correlated, responsivities across worms and fish were not. A few snakes discriminated between individual worm or fish extracts. (3) In 15 sibling newborn snakes tested on three concentrations (100%, 10%, 1%) of earthworm and fish extracts, most responded more to worm regardless of concentration, a 1% worm extract being more effective than 100% fish. The method of limits was used in both ascending and descending sequences. (4) In all three litters, the snakes could be divided into a few discrete groups based on the relative preference for fish or worm extracts. However, there was wide individual variation in attack frequency, attack latency, and tongue flicking in absence of prey attack. (5) The results are discussed in terms of a genetically based perceptual polymorphism. The phenomenon's possible role in the natural history and evolution of snakes, especially the interaction with feeding experience, is elaborated.

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