Neuroethological assessment of stress condition : its development andapplication.

动物福利是近年来社会关注的热点问题之一。为了在这一重要问题上提供科学的观点，似乎有必要建立一种客观可行的方法来评估给定动物的应激状况。基于过去十年积累的大量信息，免疫、神经内分泌和自主神经系统之间的相互作用已经建立起来。根据这一概念，当动物受到感染等免疫干扰时，来自免疫系统的信息被传递到体温调节系统、神经内分泌系统和自主神经系统，以最有效地应对危机。实验表明，脂多糖（LPS）是革兰氏阴性菌的一种内毒素，已被证明可诱导发热反应，激活下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴，抑制性腺和甲状腺功能等生理系统，并引起多种动物的心动过速。为了了解不同应激源病理生理反应背后的免疫-神经内分泌机制，阐明个体动物免疫、神经内分泌、体温调节、自主神经和行为反应之间的相互作用至关重要。然而，关于这些相互作用的可用信息是有限的。部分原因是以往的研究大多是在实验室啮齿类动物中进行的，因此由于体型较小，同时测量各种参数存在实验局限性。因此，本研究试图以柴山羊为实验动物，结合神经生理学、内分泌学、免疫学和行为学等参数，建立适合于评价LPS诱导应激的神经行为学研究模型。

Animal welfare is one of the subject on which social interest has recently been focused. To provide scientific view on this important matter it seems essential to establish an objective as well as feasible means for assessing the stress condition of a given animal. An interaction among the immune, neuroendocrine and autonomic nervous system has been established based on the large body of information accumulated during the last decade. According to this concept, when animals are subjected to an immunological disturbance such as infection, information from the immune system is transmitted to the thermoregulatory, neuroendocrine and autonomic systems to cope with the crisis most efficiently. Experimentally, the administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an endotoxin of gram negative bacteria, has been shown to induce febrile responses, to activate the hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, to suppress physiological systems such as gonadal and thyroid functions, and to cause tachycardia in various species of animals. To understand the immuno-neuroendocrine mechanism underlying the pathophysiological responses to various stressors, it is important to clarify the interactionhs among immune, neuroendocrine, thermoregulatory, autonomic and behavioral responses of individual animals. However, available information is limited about these interactions. This is partly because most previous studies were carried out in laboratory rodents and thus there were experimental limitations for simultaneous measurement of various parameters due to the small body size. In the present study we therefore atttempted to establish a suitable research model for assessing the neuroethological responses to the experimentally induced stress, such as that induced by LPS administration, with neurophysiological, endocrinological, immunological and behavioral parameters by using the Shiba goat as an exprimental animal.