The Habituation Process in Two Groups of Wild Moor Macaques (Macaca maura)

When studying animal behavior in the wild, some behaviors may require observation from a relatively short distance. In these cases, habituation is commonly used to ensure that animals do not perceive researchers as a direct threat and do not alter their behavior in their presence. However, habituation can have significant effects on the welfare and conservation of the animals. Studying how nonhuman primates react to the process of habituation can help to identify the factors that affect habituation and implement habituation protocols that allow other researchers to speed up the process while maintaining high standards of health and safety for both animals and researchers. In this study, we systematically described the habituation of two groups of wild moor macaques (Macaca maura), an Endangered endemic species of Sulawesi Island (Indonesia), to assess the factors that facilitate habituation and reduce impact on animal behavior during this process. During 7 months, we conducted behavioral observations for more than 7,872 encounters and an average of 120 days to monitor how macaque behavior toward researchers changed through time in the two groups under different conditions. We found that both study groups (N = 56, N = 41) became more tolerant to the presence of researchers during the course of the habituation, with occurrence of neutral group responses increasing, and minimum distance to researchers and occurrence of fearful group responses decreasing through time. These changes in behavior were predominant when macaques were in trees, with better visibility conditions, when researchers maintained a longer minimum distance to macaques and, unexpectedly, by the presence of more than one researcher. By identifying these factors, we contribute to designing habituation protocols that decrease the likelihood of fearful responses and might reduce the stress experienced during this process.

Appositeness of artificial intelligence in modern medicine

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be demonstrated as intelligence demonstrated by machines.AI research has gone through different phases like simulating the brain, modeling human problem solving, formal logic, large databases of knowledge and imitating animal behavior. In the beginning of 21st century, highly mathematical statistical machine learning has dominated the field, was found useful and considered in helping to solve many challenging problems throughout industry and academia. The domain was discovered and work was done on the assumption that human intelligence can be simulated by machines. These initiate some discussions in raising queries about the mind and the ethics of creating artificial beings with human-like intelligence. Myth, fiction, and philosophy are involved in the creation of this field. The debates and discussion also point to concerns of misuse regarding this technology.

Thermal and behavioral response of horses submitted to functional exercises and acupuncture

ABSTRACT: The present research evaluated muscle activation degrees and relaxation of patrolling horses submitted to dynamic mobilization exercises, associated or not with acupuncture. Twelve mixed breed gelding, aged 10 ± 2.0 years, were distributed in three treatments. Treatment with a single session of dynamic mobilization exercises (longitudinal cervical flexion of head between hooves, between carpus and to up to chest); treatment with a single acupuncture session during 20 minutes, and treatment with a single session of dynamic mobilization exercises with acupuncture. Thermographic images were analyzed before and after applying treatments to the cervical, thoracic, dorsal, abdominal and pelvic regions. Animal behavior was assessed through five minutes filming, before and ten minutes after the end of each treatment application, in an uninterrupted way. Increase in animals body temperature at the end of the single session of functional exercises (P < 0.0001) at all animal regions were reported, being cervical and thoracic areas with highest final temperature values. There was no temperature variation for other treatments (P > 0.05). All treatments stimulated higher expression frequency (P < 0.05) of relaxation behaviors. A single dynamic mobilization exercises session is enough to promote intense muscular response in entire horse body; and with acupuncture, individually or associated, promoted muscle and mental relaxation, interfering positively in animal welfare.

Behavior of rats treated with Rhus toxicodendron 200cH

One of the main pathogenetic characteristics of Rhus toxicodendron (Rhus-t) is the presence of articular pain and aggravation on standing, which improve only by motion. The present study proposes an experimental model to evaluate the action of Rhus-t 200cH. Rats were divided into 3 groups according to treatment received (Rhus-t, diazepam and water); each group was further divided into two sub-groups according to the initial pattern of behavior (hyperactive and hypoactive) as assessed by open-field procedure. A second evaluation of behavior performed 24 hours later pointed out to the effects of the medications under study. Results were analyzed through Kruskal-Wallis/Dunn’s test, with a level of significance p=0.05. Keywords: Rhus toxicodendron; Animal behavior; Open-field; Idiosyncrasy.  Conduta de ratos tratados com Rhus toxicodendron 200cH Resumo Uma das características patogenéticas principais de Rhus toxicodendron (Rhus-t) é a presença de dor articular e agravação em pé, melhorando exclusivamente com o movimento. O presente estudo propõe um modelo experimental para avaliar a ação de Rhus-t 200cH. Ratos foram divididos em 3 grupos de tratamento (Rhus-t, diazepam e água); cada grupo doi subdividido em 2 subgrupos de acordo com o padrão inicial de conduta (hiper e hipoativos) em procedimento de campo aberto. Uma segunda avaliação da conduta, realizada 24 horas após, indicou o efeito dos medicamentos sob estudo. Os resultados foram analisados pelo teste de Kruskal-Ealis/Dunn com nível de significância p=0,05. Palavras-chave: Rhus toxicodendron; comportamento animal; Campo aberto; idiossincrasia.  Conducta da ratones tratados con Rhus toxicodendron 200cH Resumen Una de las principales características patogenéticas de Rhus toxicodendron (Rhus-t) es la presencia de dolor articular y agravación de pie, que mejora exclusivamente por el movimiento. Este estudio propone un modelo experimental para evaluar la acción de Rhus-t 200cH. Ratones fueron divididos en 3 grupos de tratamiento (Rhus-t, diazepam y agua); cada grupo fue subdividido en 2 subgrupos según el padrón inicial de conducta (hiper e hipoactivos) en procedimiento de campo abierto. Una segunda evaluación de la conducta, realizada 24 horas después, indicó el efecto de los medicamentos en estudio. Los resultados fueron analizados por el test de Kruskal-Wallis/Dunn con nivel de significancia p=0,05. Palabras-clave: Rhus toxicodendron; Comportamiento animal; campo abierto; Idiosincrasia.  Correspondence author: Leoni Villano Bonamin; Universidade Paulista, Brazil; [email protected] How to cite this article: Rocha MPS, Soares FM, Martini LC, Bonamin LV. Behavior of rats treated with Rhus toxicodendron 200cH. Int J High Dilution Res [online]. 2008 [cited YYYY Mmm DD]; 7(22): 3-6. Available from: http://journal.giri-society.org/index.php/ijhdr/article/view/265/333. ÂÂÂ

Selfee: Self-supervised Features Extraction of animal behaviors

Fast and accurately characterizing animal behaviors is crucial for neuroscience research. Deep learning models are efficiently used in the laboratories for behavior analysis. However, it has not been achieved to use a fully unsupervised method to extract comprehensive and discriminative features directly from raw behavior video frames for annotation and analysis purposes. Here, we report a self supervised feature extraction (Selfee) convolutional neural network with multiple downstream applications to process video frames of animal behavior in an end to end way. Visualization and classification of the extracted features (Meta representations) validate that Selfee processes animal behaviors in a comparable way of human understanding. We demonstrate that Meta representations can be efficiently used to detect anomalous behaviors that are indiscernible to human observation and hint in depth analysis. Furthermore, time series analyses of Meta representations reveal the temporal dynamics of animal behaviors. In conclusion, we present a self supervised learning approach to extract comprehensive and discriminative features directly from raw video recordings of animal behaviors and demonstrate its potential usage for various downstream applications.