Improvement of the Welfare Quality scoring model for dairy cows to fit experts' opinion

After several years of implementation, the original Welfare Quality scoring model for dairy cows appears to be highly sensitive to the number and cleanliness of drinkers and not enough to the prevalence of diseases, and as a consequence may not fit the opinion of some animal welfare experts. The present paper aims to improve the Welfare Quality calculations for the criteria 'Absence of prolonged thirst' and 'Absence of disease' in dairy cows, so that the results are more sensitive to input data and better fit experts' opinion. First, we modified the calculation of 'Absence of prolonged thirst' by linearising the calculation for drinkers' availability to avoid threshold effects. Second, we modified the calculation of 'Absence of disease' by applying a Choquet integral on the three lowest spline-based scores for each health disorder to limit compensation between health disorders. Third, we performed a global sensitivity analysis of the original and the alternative scoring models. Fourth, we compared the results obtained with the original and the alternative models with eight experts' opinions on two subsets composed of 44 and 60 farms, respectively, inspected using the Welfare Quality protocol and on which experts gave their opinion on the overall level of animal welfare. Results show that the alternative model significantly reduced the 'threshold effects' related to the number of drinkers and the compensation between health disorders. On the first subset, the alternative model fits the experts' opinion slightly better than the original model (P = 0.061). On the second subset, the models performed equally. In conclusion, the proposed refinements for calculating scores are validated since they significantly reduced 'threshold effects' and the influence of measures related to drinkers. It also reduced the compensation between health disorders by considering only the three lowest scores and thus increasing the influence of measures related to health disorders, and slightly improve at overall score level the accordance with experts' opinion

Development of pig welfare assessment protocol integrating animal-, environment-, and management-based measures

Abstract Background Due to increased interest in animal welfare, there is now a need for a comprehensive assessment protocol to be used in intensive pig farming systems. There are two current welfare assessment protocols for pigs: Welfare Quality® Assessment Protocols (applicable in the Europe Union), that mostly focuses on animal-based measures, and the Swine Welfare Assurance Program (applicable in the United States), that mostly focuses on management- and environment-based measures. In certain cases, however, animal-based measures might not be adequate for properly assessing pig welfare status. Similarly, welfare assessment that relies only on environment- and management-based measures might not represent the actual welfare status of pigs. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to develop a new welfare protocol by integrating animal-, environment-, and management-based measures. The background for selection of certain welfare criteria and modification of the scoring systems from existing welfare assessment protocols are described. Methods The developed pig welfare assessment protocol consists of 17 criteria that are related to four main principles of welfare (good feeding, good housing, good health, and appropriate behavior). Good feeding, good housing, and good health were assessed using a 3-point scale: 0 (good welfare), 1 (moderate welfare), and 2 (poor welfare). In certain cases, only a 2-point scale was used: 0 (certain condition is present) or 2 (certain condition is absent). Appropriate behavior was assessed by scan sampling of positive and negative social behaviors based on qualitative behavior assessment and human-animal relationship tests. Results Modification of the body condition score into a 3-point scale revealed pigs with a moderate body condition (score 1). Moreover, additional criteria such as feed quality confirmed that farms had moderate (score 1) or poor feed quality (score 2), especially those farms located in a high relative humidity region. Conclusions The developed protocol can be utilized to assess welfare status in an intensive pig farming system. Although further improvements are still needed, this study is a first step in developing a pig welfare assessment protocol that combines animal-, environment-, and management-based measures

Memory reactivation, dissociated from behavioral expression, decreases ERK phosphorylation in the rat prefrontal cortex and amygdale.

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d-Cycloserine facilitates extinction of a cocaine-induced conditioned place preference

d-Cycloserine, a partial NMDA agonist, significantly accelerated extinction of a cocaine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) when rats were given systemic injections immediately, but not 4h, after each extinction trial. Infusions directly into the basolateral amygdala had a similar effect. The facilitative effect of d-cycloserine on the extinction of appetitive conditioning is consistent with the idea of the formation of new learned associations during extinction

The facilitative effects of d-cycloserine on extinction of a cocaine-induced conditioned place preference can be long lasting and resistant to reinstatement

Rationale and objective: The N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor agonist, d-cycloserine (DCS), accelerates extinction of a cocaine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) when given after daily extinction tests. Here, we studied the effects of DCS in rats given spaced-extinction sessions at 3- or 7-day intervals using two different extinction procedures. Materials and methods: Rats were trained on a CPP (four cocaine, 10 mg/kg, i.p., and four saline pairings with one of two compartments). Immediately following the CPP test and all extinction tests (days 4, 7, 10, and 24, experiment 1), DCS (15 mg/kg, i.p.) or saline was administered. In experiment 2, extinction was conducted by exposing rats to the drug-paired cues for 2 or 20 min, three times, at 7-day intervals followed immediately by DCS or saline. After extinction, tests for retention and cocaine-induced reinstatement were given. Results: In experiment 1, rats given DCS lost the cocaine CPP after one extinction trial, an effect that persisted for 2 weeks after the last DCS injection and that was resistant to cocaine-induced reinstatement. In experiment 2, extinction was facilitated by DCS compared to saline when rats received 2-min exposures to the conditioned stimulus. Longer 20-min exposures minus/plus repeated testing led to retention of extinction in both groups regardless of DCS treatment. Conclusions: Extinction of appetitive conditioning is facilitated by DCS after 1-3 post-spaced trial injections, and retention is lasting and resistant to reinstatement. The facilitative effects appear early in extinction, but when extinction procedures are intensive, DCS appears to have no additional benefit

Exposure to Retrieval Cues Improves Retention Performance and Induces Changes in ACTH and Corticosterone Release.

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