Dataset Information

Happy hamsters? Enrichment induces positive judgement bias for mildly (but not truly) ambiguous cues to reward and punishment in Mesocricetus auratus.

ABSTRACT: Recent developments in the study of animal cognition and emotion have resulted in the 'judgement bias' model of animal welfare. Judgement biases describe the way in which changes in affective state are characterized by changes in information processing. In humans, anxiety and depression are characterized by increased expectation of negative events and negative interpretation of ambiguous information. Positive wellbeing is associated with enhanced expectation of positive outcomes and more positive interpretation of ambiguous information. Mood-congruent judgement biases for ambiguous information have been demonstrated in a range of animal species, with large variation in the way tests are administered and in the robustness of analyses. We highlight and address some issues using a laboratory species not previously tested: the Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus). Hamsters were tested using a spatial judgement go/no-go task in enriched and unenriched housing. We included a number of controls and additional behavioural tests and applied a robust analytical approach using linear mixed effects models. Hamsters approached the ambiguous cues significantly more often when enriched than unenriched. There was no effect of enrichment on responses to the middle cue. We discuss these findings in light of mechanisms underlying processing cues to reward, punishment and true ambiguity, and the implications for the welfare of laboratory hamsters.

SUBMITTER: Bethell EJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4632568 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Happy hamsters? Enrichment induces positive judgement bias for mildly (but not truly) ambiguous cues to reward and punishment in Mesocricetus auratus.

Bethell Emily J EJ Koyama Nicola F NF

Royal Society open science 20150729 7

Recent developments in the study of animal cognition and emotion have resulted in the 'judgement bias' model of animal welfare. Judgement biases describe the way in which changes in affective state are characterized by changes in information processing. In humans, anxiety and depression are characterized by increased expectation of negative events and negative interpretation of ambiguous information. Positive wellbeing is associated with enhanced expectation of positive outcomes and more positiv ...[more]

PMID: 26587255

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Project description:Vocal signaling is one of many behaviors that animals perform during social interactions. Vocalizations produced by both sexes before mating can communicate sex, identity and condition of the caller. Adult golden hamsters produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) after intersexual contact. To determine whether these vocalizations are sexually dimorphic, we analyzed the vocal repertoire for sex differences in: 1) calling rates, 2) composition (structural complexity, call types and nonlinear phenomena) and 3) acoustic structure. In addition, we examined it for individual variation in the calls. The vocal repertoire was mainly composed of 1-note simple calls and at least half of them presented some degree of deterministic chaos. The prevalence of this nonlinear phenomenon was confirmed by low values of harmonic-to-noise ratio for most calls. We found modest sexual differences between repertoires. Males were more likely than females to produce tonal and less chaotic calls, as well as call types with frequency jumps. Multivariate analysis of the acoustic features of 1-note simple calls revealed significant sex differences in the second axis represented mostly by entropy and bandwidth parameters. Male calls showed lower entropy and inter-quartile bandwidth than female calls. Because the variation of acoustic structure within individuals was higher than among individuals, USV could not be reliably assigned to the correct individual. Interestingly, however, this high variability, augmented by the prevalence of chaos and frequency jumps, could be the result of increased vocal effort. Hamsters motivated to produce high calling rates also produced longer calls of broader bandwidth. Thus, the sex differences found could be the result of different sex preferences but also of a sex difference in calling motivation or condition. We suggest that variable and complex USV may have been selected to increase responsiveness of a potential mate by communicating sexual arousal and preventing habituation to the caller.

Project description:To conserve scarce energetic resources during winter, seasonal breeders inhibit reproduction and other nonessential behavioral and physiological processes. Reproductive cessation is initiated in response to declining day lengths, a stimulus represented centrally as a long-duration melatonin signal. The melatonin signal is not decoded by the reproductive axis directly, but by an unidentified neurochemical system upstream of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). The dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (DMH) has been implicated in seasonal changes in reproductive function in Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus), although the specific-cell phenotype decoding photoperiodic information remains unknown. RFamide-related peptide (RFRP; the mammalian homolog of the gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH) gene identified in birds) has emerged as a potent inhibitory regulator of the reproductive axis and, significantly, its expression is localized to cell bodies of the DMH in rodents. In the present study, the authors explored the relationship between RFRP expression, photoperiod exposure, and reproductive condition/hormonal status. In male hamsters that respond to short days with reproductive inhibition, RFRP-ir and mRNA expression are markedly reduced relative to long-day animals. Replacement of testosterone in short-day animals did not affect this response, suggesting that alterations in RFRP expression are not a result of changing sex steroid concentrations. A subset of the hamster population that ignores day length cues and remains reproductively competent in short days (nonresponders) exhibits RFRP-ir expression comparable to long-day hamsters. Analysis of cell body and fiber density suggests a potential interplay between peptide production and release rate in differentially regulating the reproductive axis during early and late stages of reproductive regression. Together, the present findings indicate that photoperiod-induced suppression of reproduction is associated with changes in RFRP and mRNA expression, providing opportunity for further exploration on the role that RFRP plays in this process.

Project description:BackgroundThe Syrian hamster (golden hamster, Mesocricetus auratus) is gaining importance as a new experimental animal model for multiple pathogens, including emerging zoonotic diseases such as Ebola. Nevertheless there are currently no publicly available transcriptome reference sequences or genome for this species.ResultsA cDNA library derived from mRNA and snRNA isolated and pooled from the brains, lungs, spleens, kidneys, livers, and hearts of three adult female Syrian hamsters was sequenced. Sequence reads were assembled into 62,482 contigs and 111,796 reads remained unassembled (singletons). This combined contig/singleton dataset, designated as the Syrian hamster transcriptome, represents a total of 60,117,204 nucleotides. Our Mesocricetus auratus Syrian hamster transcriptome mapped to 11,648 mouse transcripts representing 9,562 distinct genes, and mapped to a similar number of transcripts and genes in the rat. We identified 214 quasi-complete transcripts based on mouse annotations. Canonical pathways involved in a broad spectrum of fundamental biological processes were significantly represented in the library. The Syrian hamster transcriptome was aligned to the current release of the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell transcriptome and genome to improve the genomic annotation of this species. Finally, our Syrian hamster transcriptome was aligned against 14 other rodents, primate and laurasiatheria species to gain insights about the genetic relatedness and placement of this species.ConclusionsThis Syrian hamster transcriptome dataset significantly improves our knowledge of the Syrian hamster's transcriptome, especially towards its future use in infectious disease research. Moreover, this library is an important resource for the wider scientific community to help improve genome annotation of the Syrian hamster and other closely related species. Furthermore, these data provide the basis for development of expression microarrays that can be used in functional genomics studies.

Dataset Information

Happy hamsters? Enrichment induces positive judgement bias for mildly (but not truly) ambiguous cues to reward and punishment in Mesocricetus auratus.

Publications

Happy hamsters? Enrichment induces positive judgement bias for mildly (but not truly) ambiguous cues to reward and punishment in Mesocricetus auratus.

Similar Datasets

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