Researchers are obligated to ensure food quality and provide laboratory animals with a palatable diet. Factors influencing the quality and palatability of very high-fat diet (VHFD), a widely used rodent diet, however, are understudied. We...
Flow is an altered state of feeling ‘in the zone’ when fully absorbed in a challenge and is associated with positive affective state (feelings). Despite almost five decades of research, Flow has not yet been...
Cognitive enrichment is a growing subset of environmental enrichment for captive animals. However, it has been difficult for practitioners to design, implement, and evaluate relevant and appropriate cognitive challenges. Even though pure comparative cognition researchers...
Cognitive enrichment” is a subset of enrichment that has gained interest from researchers over the past decade, particularly those working in zoos. This review explores the forms of cognitive enrichment that have been attempted for...
Fear reactions in horses are a major cause of horse–human accidents, and identification of effective pathways for reduction in fearfulness can help decreasing the frequency of accidents. For a young mammal, the mother is one...
Social interaction can improve animal performance through the prevention of stress-related events, the provision of security, and the enhancement of reproductive output and survival. We investigated the effects of prolonged chronic social isolation stress on...
Behavioural plasticity is an advantageous trait for animals living in dynamic environments, and can be induced through learning. While some behavioural traits are innate, others are framed by experience and learning during an individual’s lifetime...
In an attempt to develop more effective surgical implantation methods for fish, surgical incisions typical of those made for implanting micro-acoustic transmitters into the peritoneal cavity were evaluated on a weekly basis for healing progression...
Research on the psychological and physiological well-being of captive animals has focused on investigating different types of social and structural enrichment. Consequently, cognitive enrichment has been understudied, despite the promising external validity, comparability, and applicability...
The judgement bias test represents one of the most applied tools to evaluate animals’ optimistic/pessimistic attitude and to infer their emotional and welfare state accordingly. The judgement bias test (JBT) has been used several times...