How do dogs respond to changes in cortisol levels in conspecifics and humans?

该项目旨在了解狗是否以及如何检测到狗和人类皮质醇水平的变化。这种现象的进化可能是因为动物具有选择性优势，如果它能避免被其他动物发现的危险，除了自己的感知之外。然而，这种能力也有潜在的福利和训练意义--慈善机构已经开始训练狗来提醒患有爱迪生病的患者肾上腺危机的发生。爱迪生病是一种皮质醇水平较低的疾病。这个项目将与世界领先的慈善机构合作，采用多学科的方法来量化爱迪生警犬的表现，并评估同种和跨种压力的情绪传染效应(S)。使用汗液样本，我们将评估反应的敏感性和特异性，并使用质谱学来识别触发警报行为的关键化合物。利用布里斯托尔大学开发和验证的可训练性和情感状态测试，我们还将探索向幼稚的狗呈现人类尿样和在自然发生压力时收集的狗的尿样的效果。因此，该项目有可能提高对情绪传染和信号的理解，以及狗的福利和工作能力。学生将有独特的机会加入一个强大的跨机构、多学科的合作。他们将主要在布里斯托尔兽医学校世界著名的动物福利和行为小组工作，还将在加的夫生物科学学院穆勒博士的实验室工作，学习在脊椎动物化学生态学中使用的挥发性有机化合物的收集、分析、解释和评估方法。医学检测犬是训练狗进行医疗警觉和生物检测的世界领先者，这将是对培训的补充。学生将在行为观察、测量工作犬的表现和福利、气味分析、数据处理和评估方面获得跨学科的技能。

This project aims to understand whether and how dogs detect changes in cortisol levels in dogs and humans. This phenomenon may have evolved because of the selective advantage an animal has, if it can avoid danger detected by other animals, in addition to its own perception. However, this ability has potential welfare and training implications - charities have started to train dogs to alert patients living with Addison's disease, a condition resulting in low cortisol levels, to the onset of an adrenal crisis.Working with a world-leading charity, this project will take a multidisciplinary approach to quantify the performance of Addison alert dogs and assess the emotional contagion effect(s) of conspecific and interspecific stress. Using sweat samples we will assess sensitivity and specificity of response and use mass-spectrometry to identify critical compounds that trigger alerting behaviour. Using tests of trainability and affective state, developed and validated at University of Bristol, we will also explore the effect of presenting naive dogs with urine samples from humans and dogs collected at times of naturally occurring stress.The project therefore has the potential to improve understanding of emotional contagion and signaling and the welfare and working ability of dogs. The student will have the unique opportunity to join a strong cross-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboration. They will be primarily based at the world-renowned Animal Welfare and Behaviour Group at Bristol Veterinary School and will also work in Dr Muller's laboratory at the Cardiff School of Biosciences to learn methods of collection, analysis, interpretation and evaluation of volatile organic compounds, as used in vertebrate chemical ecology. A placement with Medical Detection Dogs, a world leader in training dogs for medical alert and bio-detection will complement the training. The student will gain skills across disciplines in behavioural observation, measuring working dog performance and welfare, scent analysis, data processing and evaluation.