"Needs," "pleasures," or both? Operationalizing "environmental enrichments" in terms of their impacts on animal welfare and other aspects of biological functioning

我的团队致力于对动物福利和贫困住房的影响进行客观评估，以期对农场、实验室和动物园的动物福利进行循证改善。这项为期5年的计划旨在解决“环境丰富”问题：在贫瘠、没有刺激性的笼子中增加复杂性和/或自然行为的机会。它的目的是通过提高对环境丰富对动物功能的许多潜在好处的理解，正式确定环境丰富的定义和分类。因此，对于动物福利科学家来说，成功的财富增加了福利--但他们可以用不同的方式做到这一点(通过仔细结合不同的研究方法，从经验上梳理了各种方式)：它们可能通过满足动物对特定资源或活动的需求来缓解慢性压力，或者，或许不太重要的是，它们可能只会引发消极的情绪或“快乐”。(有些富豪甚至可能同时拥有这两种属性，如果经验导致依赖，就会从“快乐”变成“需要”)。相比之下，对于神经学家来说，成功的营养丰富会改善大脑结构和功能。关于这一点，已经有大量文献；但是，尽管有有趣的证据表明，积极的情绪和/或压力的减轻可能会调节这种影响，但丰富食物通过改善动物的福祉来促进动物大脑发育的假说从未得到检验。其他类型的研究正在开始揭示浓缩铀更长期的好处。一些提高了动物的繁殖能力；另一些则让它们活得更长。减轻压力是一个看似合理的解释；人类数据甚至表明，快乐(不仅仅是没有压力)可以延长寿命。然而，幸福感是否会增强健康--它可能是如何做到的--还没有完全解决。通过对水貂和小鼠的一系列集中实验，我们将建立一个关于20多种不同营养素的激励和减压特性的大量数据库，使我们能够从统计上调查这些影响如何与(甚至导致)增强大脑发育、繁殖成功和寿命相关。这项研究是对饲养动物进行的最全面的筛选，对评估和改善圈养动物的福利具有相当大的意义。

My group works on the objective assessment of animal welfare & the impact of impoverished housing, with a view to the evidence-based improvement of farm, laboratory & zoo animal well-being. This 5-year program tackles 'environmental enrichment': the adding of complexity &/or opportunities for natural behaviour to barren, unstimulating cages. It aims to formalise how environmental enrichments are defined & categorised, by improving the understanding of their many potential benefits on animals' functioning. Thus to animal welfare scientists, successful enrichments improve welfare - but they can do this in different ways (ways empirically teased apart by carefully combining different research approaches): they may alleviate chronic stress by meet- ing animals' needs for particular resources or activities, or, perhaps less importantly, they may just elicit posit- ive emotions or 'pleasure'. (Some enrichments may even have both types of property, turning from 'Pleasures' into 'Needs' if experience leads to dependency). To neuroscientists, in contrast, successful enrichments cause improvements in brain structure & function. A vast literature exists on this; but despite intriguing evidence that positive emotions and/or stress reduction may mediate such effects, the hypothesis that enrichments enhance animals' brain development by improving their wellbeing has never been tested. Other types of study are start- ing to reveal yet more longterm benefits of enrichment. Some enhance animals' abilities to reproduce; others allow them to live longer. Stress reduction is a plausible explanation; human data even suggest that being happy (not just 'not stressed') improves lifespan. Yet once again, whether wellbeing enhances fitness, & quite how it may do so, is not fully resolved. Through a series of focussed experiments on mink & mice, we will build a substantial database on the motivational & stress-reducing properties of over 20 different enrichments, allowing us to statistically investigate how such effects relate to (even cause) enhanced brain development, reproductive success & lifespan. The most comprehensive screening of enrichments ever conducted, this research has considerable implications for the assessment & improvement of captive animals' welfare.