Animal Behavior Research Blog Posts

Zinc deficiency, depression and electrical signals in the brain

Depression has a dramatic effect on quality of life because it results in a persistent low mood that is accompanied by a low self-esteem and a loss of interest in things that give pleasure.

Fearful chicken: Fear affects stress, behavior patterns, and other individuals

Elske de Haas, Ph.D. studied the effects of fearfulness on the chickens' own behavior and physiology, but also what it did to other individuals.

Ladybugs and lacewings do not spy on their prey’s alarm pheromone

Leaf sucking creatures like plant aphids are common and can cause considerable damage to plants. Therefore, quite a lot of effort is made to control these tiny creatures.

How to really challenge mice cerebellar plasticity

Jan-Willem Potters used the ErasmusLadder in his thesis research to study the role of specific mutations of plasticity in the cerebellar microcircuit of mice.

Picky cats and tasty food – sniffing is an indicator for tastiness

Cats can be extremely picky when it comes to food. If the cat doesn’t like it, it will refuse to eat. Reason enough for the pet food industry to try to find out what cats really like.

A high-throughput method to screen natural behavior of mice

Traditional standard tests with rats or mice are carried out immediately after human interference. Therefore, the behavior of the animals may not be natural and spontaneous.

Anxiety is ancient – how crayfish resemble vertebrates

Fear is something we all know. It changes our behavior: we freeze, try to escape, or respond with aggression. Fear can also cause anxiety, which is a more complex phenomenon.

Inhibitory avoidance learning in zebrafish (Danio rerio)

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is increasingly being used as model in behavioural, neurobiological and genetic research.

Walking the ladder: testing the cellular source of motor functioning in mice

The cerebellum, our “little brain”, is all about motor control; more specifically, it’s about coordination, precision, and timing.

What a horse likes to eat: how to test dietary preferences

Redgate and colleagues looked into the addition of a monadic phase (a phase in which only one food was offered at a time instead of all of the options) to choice testing.

The accuracy of measuring fish aggression by using mirror tests

To examine the response of cichlids to their mirror image, Balzarini et al. used three sympatric species from Lake Tanganyika and did the mirror test for measuring aggression.

The relationship between food scarcity and caching in fox squirrels

We’ve all seen squirrels carrying acorns around in their mouths and burying them in the ground. This is a way to hoard food, and most squirrels use a strategy called scatter-hoarding.