On the impact of the coping type on behavioural flexibility and stress reactivity of dwarf goats during learning

在面对特定种类的环境刺激时，动物在行为和生理特征方面的个体差异在不同情况下是一致的。在应对具有挑战性或威胁性的事件时，几种动物表现出不同的行为、神经内分泌和自主应激反应模式，这些模式被称为应对类型。衡量勇气和行为灵活性不同方面的测试通常会区分主动型和被动型。行为灵活性被定义为个体对环境刺激作出反应并使其行为适应变化条件的能力。行为灵活性的差异似乎是上述应对类型的一个重要的潜在属性或特征，可以解释各种行为和情况下的个体差异。本研究将通过对6个试验组20只雌性矮山羊幼山羊在回测和新客体测试中的行为分析，确定其应对类型（主动、中间或被动）。之后，这些动物应该在一个自动学习设备上学习视觉识别任务，该设备位于山羊的家圈内，全天24小时可用。在成功训练了一个四选项辨别任务后，我们将研究反转学习。因此，以前未奖励的符号现在作为奖励符号提供。同时，我们将研究山羊在空间辨别任务中的行为灵活性。在动物学会在y迷宫中选择一条小巷后，我们通过改变奖励小巷来研究空间反转学习。在这两种情况下，我们分析了应对类型对原始任务和反向任务学习绩效的影响。在视觉或空间学习任务的背景下，根据应对类型，通过分析心率和血压的变化来研究精神压力下的自主调节。为此，将在山羊体内植入一个数字发射器，它可以在线记录群居动物的心电图和血压曲线。该项目的目的是通过行为测试确定不同应对类型的代表，并调查在视觉和空间学习背景下应对类型对行为灵活性的影响。应对类型之间的自主调节能力可能存在差异。在农场动物中，特定应对类型的知识及其对行为灵活性和自主调节的影响对动物福利特别重要。

During the confrontation with specific classes of environmental stimuli, individual differences that are consistent across various situations have been described in animals with regard to behavioural as well as physiological characteristics. During coping with challenging or threatening events, several animal species show distinct patterns of behavioural, neuroendocrine and autonomic stress response, which are described as coping types. Tests that measure different facets of boldness and behavioural flexibility often discriminate between a proactive and a reactive type. Behavioural flexibility is defined as the ability of an individual to react on environmental stimuli and to adapt its behaviour to changing conditions. Differences in behavioural flexibility seem to be an important underlying attribute or feature of the coping types described above and can explain individual differences in a variety of behaviours and situations.In the present study, the coping type (proactive, intermediate or reactive) of 20 female juvenile dwarf goats each in six experimental groups will be determined by the analysis of their behaviour in the backtest and the novel-object test. Afterwards, the animals should learn visual discrimination tasks at an automated learning device that is situated in the home pen of the goats and available 24 hours a day. After successful training of a four-choice discrimination task, we will investigate reversal learning. Thereby, previously unrewarded symbols are now offered as the rewarded symbol. Simultaneously, we will study behavioural flexibility of the goats in a spatial discrimination task. After the animals had learned to choose one alley in a Y-maze, we investigate spatial reversal learning by changing the rewarded alley. In both contexts, we analyse the impact of the coping type on learning performance in the original and the reversed task. The autonomous regulation during mental stress will be investigated by analysing heart rate- and blood pressure variability in the context of visual or spatial learning tasks and depending on the coping type. For this purpose, a digital transmitter will be implanted in the goats, which records on-line the ECG and the blood pressure curve of group-housed animals.The goal of the project is to identify representatives of the different coping types by means of behavioural testing and to investigate the impact of the coping type on behavioural flexibility in the context of visual and spatial learning. Possible differences in autonomous regulatory capacity between the coping types should be investigated. In farm animals, the knowledge of specific coping types and their impact on behavioural flexibility and autonomous regulation are of particular importance for animal welfare.