Attention Bias: A novel method to assess psychological wellbeing in group-housed non-human primates

更好地理解动物的情绪和感觉对动物福利科学至关重要，但衡量动物的心理健康本质上是困难的。现有的幸福指数侧重于间接的生理或行为措施，这些措施有一些局限性，特别是在解释方面。对人类的研究表明，心理健康与对特定类型信息的注意偏差直接相关，这可以用简单的定向范式来衡量。我们之前的工作表明，这些方法适用于动物，并可能提供一套新的、强大的福利评估工具。在这个项目中，我们将根据我们对非人类灵长类动物“注意偏差”（AB）的初步研究，调整、完善和验证一个最先进的福利评估工具（Bethell et al, 2012 PLoS ONE 7:e44387）。在人类中，AB描述了焦虑的人对具有威胁性的社会信息保持警惕的方式：他们更快地发现潜在的威胁（比如一张愤怒的脸），并且比不焦虑的人看这些威胁性材料的时间更长。因此，焦虑的个体过度暴露于会强化他们消极情绪的刺激中；这种对即使是轻微威胁信息的优先关注对福利具有特殊意义，因为它与临床焦虑水平的脆弱性和心理健康受损有关。在此之前，我们成功地开发了一种方法来评估单独圈养的恒河猴AB，通过拍摄它们对攻击性和中性猕猴面部图像的注视。现在，我们将把最初的测试调整为在英国的一个繁殖设施中用于群体饲养的恒河猴，并改进该方法，以提供一种易于应用的工具，可以由护理人员实施，以评估生活在社会群体中的动物的心理健康。然后，我们将使用福利的行为和生理指标以及情绪倾向的相关遗传指标来验证AB作为幸福的衡量标准，并评估个体AB分数可用于预测对未来压力源（如预先计划的兽医检查）的反应的程度。这项研究为评估圈养动物的福利提供了一种开创性的方法。通过开发一种功能强大但易于使用的工具来评估心理健康，并预测对未来压力源的反应，它直接解决了NC3Rs的目标，即改进研究中动物的使用。这种方法将有助于改善在不可避免地使用灵长类动物的研究情况下的福利，并增强这些动物的终身体验。心理健康的研究动物在身体上更健康，对压力源和疾病更有抵抗力，更有可能学习协议，并提供“更清晰”的数据。一旦在非人类灵长类动物中建立起来，预计所开发的评估工具将适用于包括家养宠物和牲畜在内的一系列其他分类群。从长远来看，我们的研究小组正在努力适应一种新的人类治疗应用——“注意偏差修正”，以开发一种新的干预措施，这种干预措施将超越评估心理状态，以改善圈养恒河猴的心理健康。最近对人类的研究表明，虽然对威胁的警惕性增加会导致焦虑增加，但训练人们远离威胁刺激会减少焦虑或抑郁情绪，并减少现实生活中压力源带来的焦虑。我们的工作重点之一，是利用手提电脑技术的最新科技发展，提供最优质、大众可及及负担得起的工具，以评估和改善圈养动物的福利。

A better understanding of emotions and feelings in animals is of paramount importance to animal welfare science, but measuring psychological well-being in animals is intrinsically difficult. Existing indicators of well-being focus on indirect physiological or behavioural measures that have a number of limitations, particularly in their interpretation. Work with humans shows that psychological well-being is directly linked to biases in attention for particular types of information, and this can be measured using simple orienting paradigms. Our previous work has shown these methods are suitable for adaptation for use with animals and may provide a new and powerful set of welfare assessment tools.In this project we will adapt, refine and validate a state-of-the-art welfare assessment tool, based on our initial work on 'attention bias' (AB) in non-human primates (Bethell et al 2012 PLoS ONE 7:e44387). In humans, AB describes the way in which people who are anxious are vigilant for threatening social information: they are faster to detect potential threats (such as an angry face), and look at such threatening material for longer than do non-anxious people. As a result, anxious individuals are over-exposed to stimuli that will reinforce their negative mood; such preferential attention to even mildly threatening information has special significance for welfare, as it is associated with vulnerability to clinical levels of anxiety, and impaired psychological wellbeing.Previously, we successfully developed a method for assessing AB in individually housed captive rhesus macaques, by filming their gaze towards images of aggressive and neutral macaque faces. We will now adapt the original test for use with group-housed rhesus macaques at a breeding facility in the UK, and refine the method to provide an easily applied tool that can be implemented by care staff to assess psychological wellbeing in animals living in social groups. We will then validate AB as a measure of well-being using behavioural and physiological indicators of welfare and associated genetic indicators of emotion pre-disposition, and assess the extent to which individual AB scores can be used to predict responses to future stressors such as a pre-planned veterinary inspection. This research represents a ground-breaking approach to assessment of welfare in captive animals. It directly addresses the NC3Rs objective for the refinement of the use of animals in research, through development of a powerful but easily employed tool to assess psychological wellbeing and to predict responses to future stressors. This method will facilitate improvement of welfare in research situations where use of primates is unavoidable, and enhance the lifetime experience of these animals. Psychologically healthy research animals will be physically healthier and more robust to stressors and illness, more likely to learn protocols, and provide 'cleaner' data. Once established for non-human primates, it is anticipated the assessment tools developed will be suitable for adaptation for use with a range of other taxa, including domestic pets and livestock.Longer term, our research group is working towards adapting a new human therapeutic application - 'attention bias modification' to develop a novel intervention that will go beyond assessing psychological states to improve psychological wellbeing in captive rhesus macaques. Recent work with humans has demonstrated that, while increased vigilance towards threat leads to increased anxiety, training people to attend away from threatening stimuli leads to a reduction in anxious or depressed mood, and reduces vulnerability to anxiety following real-life stressors. A key focus of our approach is to utilise latest technological developments in hand-held computer technologies to provide the best quality widely accessible and afforadble tools for assessing and improving the welfare of captive animals.