Publications

Play behavior in crocodilians

Play behavior in crocodilians is not uncommon, but it remains virtually undescribed in scientific literature. I present the first overview of play behavior of three types (locomotor play, object play and social play) in crocodilians based on original observations, published...

Year Published: 2015Topics: Natural BehaviorAnimal Type: Crocodile & Alligator, Reptile

Citation: Dinets, V. 2015. Play behavior in crocodilians. Animal Behavior and Cognition 2(1), 49–55.

Thermal response of laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus) during the application of six methods of euthanasia assessed by infrared thermography

Refinement is one of the principles aiming to promote welfare in research animals. The techniques used during an experimental protocol, including euthanasia selection, must prevent and minimize suffering. Although the current euthanasia methods applied to laboratory rodents are accepted, the...

Year Published: 2023Topics: EuthanasiaAnimal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: Domínguez-Oliva, A., Hernández-Ávalos, I., Olmos-Hernández, A. et al. 2023. Thermal response of laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus) during the application of six methods of euthanasia assessed by infrared thermography. Animals 13(18), 2820.

Rat grimace scale as a method to evaluate animal welfare, nociception, and quality of the euthanasia method of wistar rats

Refinement of experimental procedures in animal research has the objective of preventing and minimizing pain/distress in animals, including the euthanasia period. This study aimed to evaluate pain associated with six methods of euthanasia in Wistar rats (injectable, inhalational, and physical),...

Year Published: 2023Topics: EuthanasiaAnimal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: Domínguez-Oliva, A., Olmos-Hernández, A., Hernández-Ávalos, I. et al. 2023. Rat grimace scale as a method to evaluate animal welfare, nociception, and quality of the euthanasia method of wistar rats. Animals 13(20), 3161.

Mirror image stimulation could reverse social-isolation-induced aggressiveness in the high-level subsocial lactating spider

Conspecific aggressiveness often increases after social isolation for species that are not entirely solitary, and this increased aggression could also be reversed after resocialization. However, literature on this aggression plasticity refers to either permanently social or low-level subsocial species in...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Insect & Spider, Invertebrate

Citation: Dong, B., Liu, J.-X., Quan, R.-C. et al. 2022. Mirror image stimulation could reverse social-isolation-induced aggressiveness in the high-level subsocial lactating spider. Animal Cognition 25(5), 1345–1355.

Locomotor activity as an effective measure of the severity of inflammatory arthritis in a mouse model

Objective Mouse models are valuable in preclinical studies of inflammatory arthritis. However, current methods for measuring disease severity or responses to treatment are not optimal. In this study a smart cage system using multiple sensors to measure locomotor activity was...

Year Published: 2024Topics: Disease/Experimental ModelAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Doucet, M. R., Laevski, A. M., Doiron, J. A. et al. 2024. Locomotor activity as an effective measure of the severity of inflammatory arthritis in a mouse model. PLOS ONE 19(1), e0291399.

What do we know about the use of EEG monitoring during equine anesthesia: A review

Electroencephalography is a noninvasive method used for the measurement of central nervous system bioelectrical activity. Besides its use for neurological disorders diagnostics in humans and animals, it was found to be useful as a part of the anesthetic monitoring. Introducing...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Equine

Citation: Drewnowska, O., Lisowska, B., Turek, B. 2019. What do we know about the use of EEG monitoring during equine anesthesia: A review. Applied Sciences 9(18), 3678.

Cognitive tasks as measures of pig welfare: A systematic review

Cognitive approaches are increasingly used to assess animal welfare, but no systematic review has been conducted on pigs despite their cognitive capacities. Our aims were two-fold: first, to assess the popularity and heterogeneity of this approach by quantifying the different...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Pig

Citation: Ede, T., Parsons, T. D. 2023. Cognitive tasks as measures of pig welfare: A systematic review. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.

Caution is required when considering sentience in animals: A response to the commentary by Briffa (2022) on “Hermit crabs, shells, and sentience” (Elwood 2022)

My recent review examined the complex and intimate relationship between hermit crabs and the empty gastropod shells upon which they depend for survival. Because shells come with costs as well as benefits, the crabs are highly selective about which ones...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Emotion, Pain, & SentienceAnimal Type: Crustacean, Invertebrate

Citation: Elwood, R. W. 2022. Caution is required when considering sentience in animals: A response to the commentary by Briffa (2022) on “Hermit crabs, shells, and sentience” (Elwood 2022). Animal Cognition 25(6), 1371–1374.

Hermit crabs, shells, and sentience

Hermit crabs have an intimate relationship with gastropod shells and show numerous activities by which they locate, select, and change shells in different contexts. They gather information about new shells and update information about their existing shells. This involves integration...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Emotion, Pain, & SentienceAnimal Type: Crustacean, Invertebrate

Citation: Elwood, R. W. 2022. Hermit crabs, shells, and sentience. Animal Cognition 25(5), 1241–1257.

Behavioural indicators of pain and suffering in arthropods and might pain bite back?

Pain in response to tissue damage functions to change behaviour so that further damage is minimised whereas healing and survival are promoted. This paper focuses on the behavioural criteria that match the function to ask if pain is likely in...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Emotion, Pain, & SentienceAnimal Type: Crustacean, Insect & Spider, Invertebrate

Citation: Elwood, R. W. 2023. Behavioural indicators of pain and suffering in arthropods and might pain bite back? Animals 13(16), 2602.