our emotional pets

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http://www.emotions-r-us.com/

Our Emotional Pets

It may be surprising, perhaps shocking for most people to realise that the generally accepted consensus

among neuroscientists working with human and/or non-human subjects is that only humans are conscious

(Panksepp, 2005a) - the term consciousness as used here refers to the ability to experience internal,

personal subjective experiences (AFFECTS is the psychological term for these for which Panksepp hascoined the term affective neuroscience) such as sadness,joy, happiness, fear, anger, etc..

This has not always been the case, throughout the 19th Century many scientists readily accepted the

concept of the mind, emotions and feelings as psychological phenomena. It was the 20th Century, with

the dawn of the hard behavioural scientist movement, spearheaded by behavioural psychologists like

Watson, who considered any kind of mind/mental/cognitive states as irrelevant, unscientific clutter.

Instead they concentrated on stimulus response behaviours that could be measured (see McMillan &

Rollin, 2001, Greenspan & Baars, 2005, Lecas, 2006 for reviews).

Over the last 25 years, neuroscientists have contributed a vast amount of information on emotionallearning, and Joseph LeDoux (1996) on the neurophysiology of fear in particular.

The question arises as to whether non-human animals EXPERIENCE fear, that is, do they have the same

aversive internal mental FEELINGSas humans that accompany the obvious behavioural response, such

as a dog fearful of thunder?

The answer to this question, according to Jaak Panksepp is...

even in well-funded areas such as fear conditioning, there is scarcely an investigator who dares

explicitly address the ever present worrydo animals experience fear?...and fear of being tarred with

the brush of anthropomorphism(Panksepp, 2005a).

Panksepp goes on to explain one reason for this...

Joseph LeDoux, the best funded animal emotionalmemory researcher in America, publicly related how

he failed to obtain approval for his initial grant applications until he extracted the term emotion from his

proposed work to study classical-conditioning of fear and replaced it with learning and memory terms

Other neuroscientists interested in emotions had comparable, but more sustained, funding problems

throughout the last quarter century(Panksepp, 2005b).

Panksepp argues that rather than being a recent development of the human neo-cortex, the roots of

consciousness (he uses the term AFFECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESSto reflect its internal, FEELINGnature)can be traced right back to early mammals in deep ancient sub-neocortical limbic regions of the brain.

Panksepp and his colleagues have identified seven basic emotional systems (capitalisation of the names

indicates that they refer to specific brain neural systems that are only partly understood):

SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC and PLAY (Panksepp 2005a, 2005b). The human

neocortex in all its cognitive complexity further processes these primary affects into more elaborate

emotions such as love, shame and empathy (see Table 1). The evidence for these core emotional systems

is laid out in detail elsewhere (Panksepp, 2003, 2005b, Watt, 2005), but here is a summary:

1. Opiate and dopamine agonists are drugs of abuse in humans and also attractive to othermammals.

2. PET studies show remarkable similarities in basic emotions in humans and other mammals andthese emotions arise in deep, subcortical areas of the brain (see Fig. 1 and Table 2).

3. The anatomy and neurochemistry of these subcortical areas is remarkably similar in all mammals


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and it is clearly evolutionarily homologous.

4. Areas of the brain that evoke consistent behavioural indicators of positive and negative affectivestates in humans and animals when electrically stimulated are remarkably similar and the most

powerful feelings are generated in deep, subcortical areas.

5. Evolutionary common sense suggests that emotion is an evolutionary extension of homeostasis,and that cognition is an extension of emotion and the mammalian brain has evolved to seamlessly

integrate these three levels as HOMEOSTASIS EMOTION COGNITION (Watt, 2005). The

homeostatic mechanisms are largely unconscious, but these evolved into conscious, emotional

feedback systems to let the animal know how things were going (well, or badly). It is likely that

affects, or feelings are the only true reinforcers, a view in contrast to the behaviouristic assertion

that outside events can reinforce behaviour with no associated feeling (see Watt, 2005 for full

discussion).


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The SEEKING System

Coppinger & Coppinger (2001) describe in great detail the evolved motor patterns in various types of dog

- livestock guardians, headers, heelers, hounds, pointers and retrievers. When a Border Collie is in eye-

stalk (see Fig. 2), is this just a behavioural motor pattern, or does he FEELsome pleasure as well? The

answer to this question is an unequivocal YES, and his feeling arises in the same dopamine-driven

SEEKINGsystem that gives us pleasurable feelings when were engaged in a task we enjoy.

This same system is the powerhouse behind extreme pleasure-seeking activities such as drug abuse and

even addiction to extreme sports (Franklin, Zijlstra & Muris, 2006). In animals the genesis of many

behaviour problems is the lack of opportunity to perform strong, innate behaviours and so adopts other,

inappropriate behaviours instead. Some initially fear-related aggression problems in dogs turn in to

addictive, dopamine-driven pleasure-seeking behaviours not unlike humans who enjoy the exhilaration of

escape, as their nucleus accumbens is flooded with dopamine after terrifying them selves by jumping off

a tall building (B.A.S.E. jumping).

The FEAR System

Although there are species differences in how the Fight-Flight-Freeze system is engaged when an animal

is aroused by a novel and potentially dangerous stimulus, the underlying mechanism is the same in all

mammals as mapped out by LeDoux, 1996. Information about external stimuli is relayed by the sensory

organs (ear, eye) to the thalamus. A signal from a sudden noise, for example (see Fig. 3), arrives at the

auditory thalamus that relays the data on to the sensory auditory cortex (High Road). The sensory cortex

has the benefit of advanced cognitive processing and can therefore evaluate the incoming data, make a

risk-benefit analysis of all the possible reactions and choose the best fit before sending the data on to the

amygdala for an appropriate emotional response. The sensory cortexs job is to prevent an inappropriate

response rather than to produce an appropriate one.

There is also a smaller, faster neural pathway running from the thalamus directly to the amygdala (Low

Road), that is the storehouse for emotionally charged memories. The Low Road route cannot make fine

distinctions, it has an important advantage over the High Road route speed. In an emergency this rapid

response could be a matter of life or death. LeDoux calls it The Difference Between The Quick and the


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Dead.

Panksepp (2005b, 2006) has identified another route, the Royal Road that runs between the amygdala

and the periaqueductal gray (PAG) of the midbrain, and it is this system that constitutes the core FEAR

system. It is here that the obnoxious and aversive FEELINGSof fear are generated and help an animal to

anticipate and avoid danger. Other neuroscientists have largely ignored this system as meaningless

output of little importance in the study of anxiety.

However, Panksepp argues that it is central to understanding anxiety disorders, pointing out that this

FEARsystem is unconditional in that it generates these bad feelings simply by electrically stimulating it.

It is also involved with the freezing and flight response and anxiolytic drugs ameliorate anxiety by

modulating thisFEARsystem. Some dogs with a long-standing fear of thunder can become withdrawn,

depressed and jumpy and it is theFEARsystem that is responsible for these states.

The RAGE System

TheRAGEsystem does just what it says on the box. In adults it is modulated by higher cognitive centres

whereas children are less inhibited and therefore fly into tantrums easily.

Other mammals also show rage and the emotion can be elicited by direct brain stimulation.

The LUST System

We talk in terms of instinct when referring to reproduction in other mammals, but the highly subjective

erotic FEELINGS associated with it arise from ancient and deep subcortical structures common to all

mammals.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that the purpose of these highly desirable FEELINGS is to ensure

the propagation of the species (Panksepp, 2006).

The CARE System

The behaviour of a whelping bitch to the distress calls of a separated puppy is a wonderful example of the

CAREsystem. After the last pup is born, and for a duration of about thirteen days, the bitch is primed to

respond to the distress calls of any puppy that wanders away from the nest (Coppinger & Coppinger,

2001, page 217-220). TheCAREsystem (see Fig. 4) is present in all mammals (birds too) and triggered

by the changing levels of oestrogen, progesterone, prolactin and oxytocin, gives the mother the innate

ability to care for her young (Panksepp, 2006).

The PANIC System

Separation related disorders (SRD) are common behaviour problems in dogs, but how often do we relate

how a whimpering dog FEELSwhen left alone to how we feel when, for example, we lose a loved one?

Throughout the ages poets and philosophers have expressed love lost and the loss of meaningful social

bonds in painful metaphors - broken hearts, hurt feelings - and this is common across many diverse

cultures including Western and the Middle and Far East (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Eisenberger and

Lieberman (2004) have shown in fMRI studies that physical pain and social pain share common cognitive

and neural systems in the brain and suggest that this is an evolutionarily adaptive setup that helps to

ensure that conspecifics do not become separated from each other and vulnerable to danger, and in

young, dependant mammals in particular, this system is essential for their survival.


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Panksepp and colleagues have carried out extensive research over the last 25 years on separation distress

in non-human animals (see Panksepp, 2003, 2005b, 2006 for summaries) and have also foundconsiderable overlap in the brain areas for physical and social pain. They also found that opioid analgesics

were very effective at alleviating the cries of separation distress in dogs, guinea pigs, rats, primates and

even chicks, and that human sadness and guinea pig separation distress share remarkably similar brain

regions (see Fig. 5) (Panksepp, 2003). In addition to opioids, neuropeptides such as prolactin and

oxytocin also powerfully ameliorate separation distress and the feelings of depression and these

substances open the door to the possibility of new and exciting pharmacologicals for treating such

emotional states in the future.

The anatomical and experimental data is irrefutable that the sub-cortical areas of the brain that generate

and regulate both physical and social pain are evolutionarily ancient and are shared by all mammals. The

ethological fact that gentle handling of the very young can stop their cries of separation, in part throughthe release of endorphins and oxytocin, and if left alone can suffer catastrophic psychic pain and will

often die (Panksepp, 2005b).

All of this has profound implications on those dealing with animals on a day-to-day basis, such as the

veterinary and allied professions. Should veterinarians perhaps be considering the use of the longer acting

opioids such buprenorphine, even fentanyl patches or morphine infusions, not just for their analgesic

effects, but also for their powerful antidepressive effects on patients separated from their owners for any

length of time?


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The PLAY System

We probably all take for granted rough and tumble play in pets (see Fig. 6), but the apparatus for play,

the PLAY system, is actually built right into the brain (Panksepp, 2005b). Play is common across all

mammals, but in ethological terms it is very expensive, even dangerous. It musttherefore have a useful

biological function where the benefits out-weigh the risks. Traditionally, biologists and ethologists believe

that the purpose of play is to give animals safe opportunities to practice hunting and mating skills. But

there is rather more to the PLAYsystem than this.

Scientists have tended to lump play activities in with seeking activities and treat them as different facets

of the same thing. But this is incorrect. The PLAYsystem and the SEEKINGsystem are separate systems

and work through different neural networks. When we see animals engaging in PLAY, theyll often engage

some of the predatory behaviours we associate with the SEEKINGsystem, for example 'stalking' each

other, 'attacking' and 'biting' each other and so on, but this is simply because they have a limited

behavioural repertoire. What youll notice isthat dogs use different chains of behaviour in PLAYthan they

do in SEEKINGplay bows, high-pitch barking, tug of war games on a toy for example.

The PLAYsystem and the SEEKINGsystem are often antagonistic to each other rather than synergistic

and cannot be engaged at the same time. A good example of this is the routine use of amphetamines

(Ritalin) to treat children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Amphetamines work

through the SEEKING system and increase attention and exploratory behaviour by increasing the

availability of dopamine in the reinforcement circuits of the brain. In 'normal' people psycho-stimulants

like amphetamines increase arousal and activity levels. If youve ever taken Speed, youll remember the

effect of racing thoughts and chattiness, the inability to keep still to the point of agitation and the inability

to sleep. Remarkably similar to some of the hyperactivity signs seen in kids with true ADHD!! But if you

give these kids psycho-stimulants they have the opposite effectand calms them down! The reason for this

paradox remained a mystery for a long time, but we now know that ADHD is a disorder of an over-active

PLAYsystem and has nothing to do with arousal and the SEEKINGsystem. Stimulating the SEEKING

system in these kids antagonises and suppresses the PLAYsystem. Panksepp touches on the possibility

of utilising rough and tumble play as part of a management program for children with ADHD, rather than

just relying on amphetamines, that suppress the urge to play (Panksepp, 2006).

The opioids (natural endorphins in the brain) play a major role in the PLAY system and the role of

dopamine is insignificant by comparison (compare this with the SEEKINGsystem, where dopamine is the

major player). When animals play, theres a lot of body contact which causes the release of endorphins

(and other neurotrophic substances, call them 'brain food'if you like) in the brain that makes them feel

goodeuphoric. And because the animal is relaxed, unthreatened and therefore un-aroused, the PLAY

system is engaged facilitating the growth of neural circuits that strengthen social attachments and getting

along with mates. The PLAYsystem is notengaged when the animal is aroused. If the nature of this

arousal is aversive, that is the animal feels threatened, then the FEARsystem is engaged. On the other

hand, if the nature of this arousal is appetitive, then the SEEKINGsystem is engaged instead.


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One intriguing, and highly controversial possibility is that laughter and joy may not be unique to humans

and many mammals have a marvellous sense of fun (Panksepp, 2005c) and this poses an interesting

question: could your pet have a rudimentary sense of humour? (see Fig. 7).

Other evidence supporting these claims (Panksepp, 2005b) include: (1) amphetamines stimulation of the

nucleus accumbens (the area of the brain flooded with dopamine at times of intense pleasure and mirth in

humans) induces the same vigorous 50kHz chirping in rats when they are tickled, (2) rats that have been

tickled become very friendly toward the tickler and chirp at 50kHz as he/she approaches the cage, and (3)

these rats consistently choose to stay close to other rats that chirp a lot rather than those that do not.

In this summary we have made only a tiny scratch on the outer mantle of the massive volume of data

now available on the rich mental lives of non-human animals, and we appeal to everyone responsible for

the wellbeing of pets and other animals to take the time to explore this fascinating body of work and take

advantage of it in their everyday endeavours to promote a better understanding of both the positive and

negative impact we humans have on the animals in our care.

Jaak Panksepps book, "Affective neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions" (Oxford

University Press, 2004, ISBN: 019517805X) is the definitive summary of the evidence for the seven core

emotional systems discussed in this brief article. Watt (2005) says about this book:-

Im reasonably confident that future neuroscience students will look on this textbook as one

of the seminal publications on the subject of emotion and the brain

References

Coppinger, R., Coppinger, L. (2001) Dogs: A new understanding of canine origin, behavior & evolution.

University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-11563-1

Eisenburger, N., Leiberman, M. (2004) Why rejection hurts: a common neural alarm system for physical

and social pain. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, Vol.8, No. 7, 294-300.

Franken, I., Zijlstra, C., Muris, P. (2006) Are nonpharmacological induced rewards related to anhedonia?

A study among skydivers. Progress in Neuro Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 30 (2006) 297-

300.

Greenspan, R., Baars, B. (2005) Consciousness eclipsed: Jacques Loeb, Ivan P. Pavlov, and the rise of

reductionistic biology after 1900. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 219-230.

Lecas J-C. (2006) Behaviourism and the mechanization of the mind. C. R. Biologies, 329 (2006) 386397.

LeDoux, J. (1996) The Emotional Brain, Simon and Schuster Inc., New York.

MacDonald, G., Leary, M. (2005) Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and

physical pain. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 131, No. 2, 202-223.

McMillan, F., Rollin, B. (2001) The presence of mind: on reunifying the animal mind and body. JAVMA,

Vol. 218, No. 11, 1723-1726.

Panksepp, J. (2003) Feeling the pain of social loss. Science, 302, 237-239.

Panksepp, J. (2005a) Toward a science of ultimate concern. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 22-29.

Panksepp, J. (2005b) Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans.


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Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 30-80.

Panksepp, J. (2005c) Beyond a joke: From animal laughter to human joy?. Science, 308, 62-63.

Panksepp, J. (2006) Emotional endophenotypes in evolutionary psychiatry. Progress in Neuro-

Psychopharmacolgy & Biological Psychiatry, 30, 774-784.

Watt, D. (2005) Panksepps common sense view of affective neuroscience is not the commonsense view in

large areas of neuroscience. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 81-88.

Consciousness and Emotions: Different Ends of the Same Stick

Consciousness and emotions are bodily states that are prominent features of our daily lives and we all

have an intuitive understanding of what they are. Yet they have proved difficult to objectively define and

measure in scientific terms. The fact that consciousness and emotional feelings are subjective, and

therefore elusive to scientific scrutiny, is the main reason why they have been largely rejected by

behavioural psychologists as legitimate modalities for study - we discuss this inThe Historical Perspective.

In his book Principles of Psychology published in 1890, William James wrote that consciousness was an

awareness of oneself and the environment. James definition remains the standard definition touted inmany text books today and most people are comfortable with this explanation when they first come

across it. On closer scrutiny, however theres a problem. We have to define what awareness and the self

are. And it turns out that awareness is non other than consciousness, and the definition of the self is as

elusive as that of consciousness!

As a first step to solving this puzzle, lets begin by teasing out what we know about some of the properties

of consciousness and emotions.

Consciousness

Consciousness has different levels, such as awake, asleep, coma etc., where our degree of consciousnessvaries on a continuum from very conscious, through semi-conscious and on to unconscious.

Consciousness also has content, what we are actually conscious of, such as being aware that were

frightened. Whether its possible to be conscious without content is unknown, but its conceivable in

certain seizure or meditative states. Obviously, theres no content in unconsciousness, if there were it

would be a state of consciousness. And of course, the content of consciousness is subject to the narrow

focus of selective attention (we only pay attention to about 40 of the 11,000,000 bits of information per

second that constantly bombard our brains from our senses; eyes, ears, nose, skin, internal organs, etc.).

Next, lets see what we can unravel about the concept of the self. Before we do this, we need to know a

little about how children's minds develop. It was for a long time believed that children's minds worked like

adult minds, just with less knowledge in essence they were stupid versions of adults. In 1924, Swiss

psychologist Jean Piaget published his stages of cognitive development, that mapped out four, distinctstages a childs brain goes through as it grows from birth through to adolescence. We won't concern

ourselves with these stages here, except for one - the so-called preoperational stage that occurs roughly,

and gradually, between the ages of 2 and 8 years.

During this stage, children start to rely less and less on sensorimotor information from the environment

and shift their attention toward symbolic and conceptual information. The development of language starts

at around 2 and is pretty much complete by 4 years of age. By age 7, children are increasingly using

words to think (inner speech) and to solve problems by talking their way through them.

Children are not born with the ability to appreciate that others think differently from themselves

egocentrism is the inability to conceive the point of view of others. A good example is a young child thatcovers his eyes and assumes that because he cant see you, you cant see him. For those who have young

children, the reason they readily stand in front of you and block your view of the television is because

they genuinely cannot appreciate that you do not see what they see, they are not being rude or

inconsiderate.
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Between the ages of about 4 through to 8, children gradually develop the ability to see things from

anothers point of view, a theory of mind. They begin to appreciate that internal feelings akin to their own,

such as sad, happy, angry and so on, are experienced by others as well, and they begin to read this

information from facial expressions 'mum with a sad face means she feels sad. In other words, they

develop empathy. It is now widely acknowledged that in autistic children and adults with Aspergers

syndrome (a mild form of autism), this is the bit 'lacking' or 'missing'. These people have profound

difficulties in appreciating the mental states of other individuals.

Whether non-human animals possess a theory of mind is a matter of hot debate in scientific circles and

ultimately unknowable because we cant ask them! fMRI studies in humans show that parts of the parietal

and temporal lobes, the anterior cingulate and the insular cortex light up when subjects are asked to

think about themselves or others. Again, in other species these experiments are unrepeatable because

one cannot ask the animal to think specifically about anything!

I personally do not think that non-human animals have a theory of mind, not in the sense that we

understand it anyway; and I'll develop this argument further at a later date. But does this mean then they

are not conscious either? Many scientists take the view that the content component of human

consciousness arises from higher brain functions where theory of mind exists and that other mammals (or

any other animals for that matter) simply do not have this capacity. The general consensus in the

scientific community therefore, is that consciousness, as described above, is something unique to human

beings.

Recent research disputes this long-held view (see Our Emotional Pets). It now appears more likely that

consciousness is not a unitary property of mind, in the sense that you either have it, or you dont. Rather,

it exists at three levels that have developed one on top of the other in ever-evolving sophistication over

evolutionary time.

1. Primary consciousness: Consists of raw, sensory and perceptual feelings such as hungry, thirsty,hot, cold and so on. Feelings that would be a great advantage in maintaining bodily homeostasis.

This level of consciousness gives raw feedback on how things are going in the outside world, well

or badly, and is primarily concerned with keeping the organism out of trouble and alive.

2. Secondary consciousness: Consists of the capacity to have thoughts about experiences. This iswhere the content of consciousness resides.

3. Tertiary consciousness: Consists of the capacity to have thoughts about thoughts, self-awarenessand to be able to express these feelings linguistically. This is where the theory of mind component

of consciousness resides.

Its pretty evident from the science that all mammals (and perhaps some other vertebrates as well) share

both primary and secondary consciousness. Its also pretty certain that tertiary consciousness is unique to

human beings. Tertiary consciousness requires high intelligence, and high intelligence requires special

behavioural conformation. To learn about behavioural conformation, read Coppinger's book, cited in the

references forOur Emotional Pets.

What weve really been concerned with in the above discussion is the content aspect of consciousness.

Emotions

So far, Ive said a great deal about consciousness, but very little about the other end of the stick

emotions. So lets address this imbalance right now.

Many scientists working in the field behavioural psychology using laboratory animals (see The HistoricalPerspective)have been inclined to split emotions into emotional behaviours and emotional feelings. The

reason for this is that it lets them off the hook when it comes to explaining why they believe that a

behaviour, such a withdrawal from a painful stimulus, works differently in the brain of a rat, or your dog

or cat than it does in you, a human.
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An emotion consists of a physiological state, such as increased heart rate, sweating, dilated pupils and so

on. It also has a conscious, feeling state, such as feeling fearful. Psychologists call this subjective feeling

an affect, so youll see the term affective state used in text books and journals. The consequence of an

emotion is generally some behavioural response, such as running away, or the withdrawal of a paw from a

thorn. The feeling also causes a change in the level of arousal, that affects how strongly the memory of

the emotional event is laid down. Lets now have a look at each of these states of emotion in some more

detail.

Emotions physiological states

The hypothalamus of the limbic system is directly connected to the sympathetic division of the autonomic

nervous system where it affects organs such as the heart, lungs and gut. The hypothalamus also causes

the release of adrenaline into the blood stream from the adrenal glands perched on top of the kidneys.

The hypothalamus is also connected to the pituitary gland and stimulates it to release

adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) that travels down to the adrenal glands through the circulation and

stimulates the release of more adrenaline, and also cortisol into the blood stream. This is called the

hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal axis, or HPA axis for short.

Together, these two systems are responsible for the so-called stress response.

The direct connection of the hypothalamus to the sympathetic nervous system mediates a rapid response,

compared to the indirect HPA route. So, the stress response occurs in two distinct waves of activity as

summarised below:-

1st wave, autonomic response: Rapid (seconds). Causes an almost immediate increase in the heartrate and respiratory rate, dilates blood vessels to get more blood and oxygen into muscles. Dilates

the iris in the eyes so the animal can see better. It also slows the gut down, diverting blood used

for digestion to the muscles.

2nd wave, HPA axis response: Slow (minutes to hours). Causes the adrenal glands to releasecortisol. Cortisol mobilises the glucose stores in the liver and muscles so it can be metabolised as

fuel in the brain, muscles, heart and other organs. Cortisol also primes the hippocampus to add an

affective flavour to the memory of the event that triggered the stress response in the first place.

Both systems work together to provide more blood, oxygen and nutrients to the vital organs so the

animal is prepared for fight or flight, and to ensure that an appropriately meaningful memory is laid down

recording the event.

Our bodies are optimised to thrive on a little bit of daily stress. We perform better and we learn better,

and this applies to all mammals. The problem lies in uncontrolled, long-standing (or chronic) stress. The

main reason for this is the sustained elevated levels of cortisol floating round in the system. The

adrenaline is also a problem. If there was no real emergency, such as running away, to burn it all up, the

adrenaline remains in the blood stream causing sustained autonomic stimulation. With long exposure,

cortisol and adrenaline damage the immune system, cause diabetes, stunt growth, impair memory and

learning and cause high blood pressure.

Of course, in evolutionary terms the stress response is really important for the survival of an organism

it gets it out of trouble fast and if appropriate, gives it something to remember and therefore avoid similar

situations in the future. In our modern sheltered, cosy, domestic lives, real danger is not much of a

problem, but in our lifestyles, chronic stress certainly is. The same applies to our pets, especially when we

behave in unpredictable ways that they cant make sense of, or train them with little or no feedback!

Emotions affective states

We discuss the work of Paul Ikman and the six basic emotional states, Happiness, Anger, Surprise,


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Disgust, Sadness, and Fear in another section, seeMore About Emotions.

What is really interesting for us in relation to our pets is that research over the last decade or so has

shown that the development of some of these emotional affects is phylogenetically much older than

previously thought. The parts of the brain that are responsible for the FEELINGS of anger, fear, happiness

and sadness are present and well developed in ALL mammals, and some other non-mammals as well. In

addition, all mammals have brain systems that are responsible for the FEELINGS of being separated from

chums, play and lust. Have a look at this table:-

Tie these basic, mammalian emotional affects in with the three levels of consciousness, primary,

secondary and tertiary, that I described above, and we can begin to draw some objective conclusionsabout where FEELINGS in out pets fit in to the overall scheme of things.

The table above shows a logical evolutionary progression of:-

HOMEOSTASIS ---> EMOTION ---> COGNITION

It makes no sense at all to assert that somehow humans are the only species that can experience

affective states. There are just too many advantages to the survival of a species for basic FEELINGS to

have been bypassed until Homo sapiens appeared on the planet.

After all, how your dog or cat FEELS at any moment is highly subjective. The only way to truly find out is

to ask him!

On this I will leave you to ponder and draw your own conclusions...
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More About Emotions

What exactly are 'Emotions'?

There is a huge amount of variation and diversity in the customs, rituals and behaviours across the many

different cultures in the world. The importance of an understanding of these differences was all too

publically highlighted in an incident in Brazil when president Nixon of the United States was participating

in a diplomatic speech. At one point, he gestured the western all ok sign (making a ring with the thumband index finger), which in South America happens to mean I want sex with you. In France, this gesture

means zero and in Japan money. And there are many other examples just do a Google search for

communicating with gestures.

In the 1970s Paul Ekman and a team of psychologists set off across the world to investigate variations in

facial expressions across different cultures, and to find out if there were any that were common to all

races.

The purpose of the study was to cut through all the variations that had developed as part of the different

cultural traditions, and establish if there were any evolutionary roots that were the starting points on

which this diversity was build.

What Ekman and his colleagues found was that there are six universally understood facial expressions

which happened to express six basic emotional states:-

1. Happiness2. Anger3. Surprise4. Disgust5. Sadness6. Fear

The interesting fact about these six basic facial expressions is that they are hard wired in the brain. That

is, we are all born with the ability to operate all the right muscles in our faces in exactly the right way to

express each of these emotional feelings. And we are born with the ability to recognise these facial

expressions in others. The so-called preoperational stage of child development, between 2 and 7 years

old, is the time during which children develop a theory of mind (seeConsciousness and Emotions). And of

course, this is exactly what this facial recognition is all about!

Can you recognise the 6 basic emotional states in these women?

The Historical Perspective

Ask most pet owners how they think their pet feels and theyll answer with terms like happy, sad,

angry and so on, endowing on them a state of consciousness. I use the term consciousness here as the

ability to experience internal, personal subjective experiences, or feelings such as sadness, joy,

happiness, fear, anger, etc.

In the 19th century the study of consciousness was considered an integral part of scientific endeavour and

even eminent scientists such as Charles Darwin and William James took it as read that feelings were not

unique to human beings. It might therefore come as a surprise, even a shock for most pet owners to

realise that the current generally accepted consensus among neuroscientists working with human and/or

non-human subjects is that only humans are conscious (seeConsciousness and Emotions).

The dying years of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th century was a time of great scientific

endeavour when proper sciences like medicine, physics, chemistry and engineering were on the

ascendant. On the other hand psychology, and its association with mental processes, was sidelined and
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largely ignored, and the study of consciousness became a taboo.

The work of Ivan Pavlov on stimulus-response conditioning was very much in tune with the times, and in

an attempt to elevate psychology into a mainstream science, John Watson spearheaded the behaviourist

movement.

In 1913 Watson published a groundbreaking paper in the journal Psychological Review called 'Psychology

as the behaviorist views it' (aka the 'behaviourists manifesto'). In this paper he challenged fellow

psychologists to...

throw off the yoke of consciousness,

...suggesting that concerning ones self with such vagaries as consciousness, mind, emotions and feelings

had failed psychology...

as an experimental discipline to make its place in the world as an undisputed natural science.

He called upon his colleagues...

never to use terms like consciousness, mental states, mind and the like,

...and to concentrate on behaviour only, as this could be seen, measured and verified. Watson saw

behaviour as an exclusively physical, mechanical, stimulus-response phenomenon, and anything else that

went on in the black box of the mind should be ignored as irrelevant background noise.

Frederic Skinners (another staunch proponent of behaviourism) seminal work on reinforcement learning

in the 1940s and 50s followed very much along the same mechanistic line, as has the rest of mainstream

science ever since.

Over the last 25 years, neuroscientists have contributed vast amounts of information on emotional

learning, and fear conditioning is one of the most extensively studied phenomena in neurophysiology. The

question arises as to whether non-human animals EXPERIENCE fear, that is, do they have the same

aversive internal mental FEELINGS as humans that accompany the obvious behavioural response, such as

a dog fearful of thunder?

The stock answer is thatthey dont!

Some scientists still argue that when you see your dog hiding under the sofa shivering with fear, youre

witnessing an emotional behaviour, a very different thing from an emotional feeling that arises from

higher brain centres that only humans have.

This stubborn lack of acceptance by some sectors of the scientific community, that only humans

experience subjective emotional states, is in no small part due to the Pandoras box of welfare and ethical

issues that would arise if one was to accept that lab animals experienced feelings not unlike some of our

own.

Over the last decade or so there has been a growing number of eminent scientists challenging this belief

and there is now indisputable evidence that in fact, all mammals have rich and varied emotional lives (see

Our Emotional Pets). It now appears that rather than being a recent development of the human neo-

cortex, the roots of consciousness can be traced right back to early mammals in deep, ancient sub-

neocortical limbic regions of the brain. And it is in these brain regions that basic feelings such as fear,

loneliness, happiness, sadness, anger and lust arise. This evidence now strongly suggests that, far from

being irrelevant background noise, these basic emotions evolved asintegral and essential parts of the

animals learning apparatus.

What a dog, or cat, or any other mammal FEELS is an essential part of what he learns.
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Emotional Problems in Pets

The long-overdue acceptance that pets have emotions very much like our own has been pivotal in areappraisal of the modern behaviourists approach to behaviour problems is pets.

We now realise that, even though the precise measurement of emotions remains elusive, FEELINGS are

an essential element of how pets, and humans for that matter, learn anything!

So it makes good sense to start with the FEELINGS when dealing with behaviour problems in pets, such

as aggression, over-grooming, nervousness, etc.

This approach was developed by the behaviourists at theCentre of Applied Pet Ethology (COAPE)and has

been adopted as the standard my many successful behaviour therapists all over the world.

Typically this 'emotional approach' is carried out in three stages:-

1. An emotional assessment: This is an assessment of what emotions the pet is experiencing whilstengaged in the problem behaviour.

2. A mood state assessment: This is an assessment of how the pet feels generally from one day tothe next.

3. A reinforcement assessment: This is an holistic appraisal of the entire situation aimed at identifyingthe factors responsible for maintaining the problem behaviour. These factors commonly persist,

despite rigorous and varied attempts to eliminate them by owners, trainers and behaviourists.

So, by recognising that cats, dogs and other pets experience emotions very much like our own, instead of

simply judging them by their behaviour, modern animal behaviourists are now learning to solve behaviourproblems in pets much more humanely and effectively.

It's All in the Genes. Or is it?

Nature, Nurture or Both?

When I see a type of dog, I can in many cases imagine in my minds eye a pretty consistent repertoire of

characteristics and behaviours for each. But, in a police identity line-up of, say black Labradors, I think I

would have trouble recognising one from another in many cases. In a sense, were all leaves from one

tree in that we all share similar anatomy and physiology with other mammals. For example, we all haveone heart and two kidneys, the amygdala is always in the same relative position in the brain, and we all

have the same neurotransmitters and neurotransmitter receptor sites that are altered by the same drugs.

There are also similarities across the board in our psychology (and therefore behaviour) as well. For

example, puppy dogs start to fear things they have not encountered before at around 7 weeks of age. For
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As genes duplicate themselves, nature allows for slight variations in how the resulting genes work in the

next generation. Most of these changes have no effect, but some do change the organisms ability, for the

better or worse, to get on in its natural environment, and this is what natural selection (look up Charles

Darwin and the Theory of Evolution if youre rusty on this) operates on. This natural gene variation is also

responsible for the different traits we see in our dogs, and indeed our fellow human beings. So two

Siamese from the same litter may turn out looking identical, but if ever youve owned such a pair, Ill bet

that each has his own distinctive personality and quirky little ways!

Its pretty obvious that from the second an organism is born, the environment, or nurture, gets to work

shaping it and influencing how the final adult product turns out. The difficulty for science has always

been how to go about objectively picking out which bits came from nature and which from nurture and

measuring them, particularly in humans where there would be enormous ethical issues in experimenting

on children. But nature has provided the perfect experimental subjects with twins.

In fact, for many pet species of animal, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters and so on, not just twins, but

multiple litters are the norm. There are two types of twins fraternal and identical. Fraternal twins are

the result of the fertilisation of multiple ova by multiple sperm and they can be of either sex. Fraternal

twins are what we see in litters of puppies where individuals may be genetically no more alike than if they

had been conceived in a different litter by the same parents. Identical twins on the other hand are the

result of the fertilisation of a single ovum by a single sperm that subsequently splits into two genetically

identical parts and they are always same-sex; either both male or both female.

In humans the number of births that result in twins varies enormously, but a rough average is one in 35

births. Of these around 2/3 are fraternal and the other 1/3 identical twins. Identical twins in other

species rarely, if ever, occur naturally, or have never been recorded. In dogs a few natural cases have

recently been reported. What all this boils down to is that it makes human identical and fraternal twins

the ideal subjects for the ethical study of the influence of nature over nurture on how an individual turns

out.

Identical twins are effectively natures clones.

Its pretty obvious that genes passed down from the parents are solely responsible for what their progeny

turn out to look like and, apart from accidental injury, or intentional invasive body adornment, nurture

plays no part. But what about personality and behaviour? Years of research on tens of thousands of both

identical and fraternal human twins from birth right through to adulthood has shown categorically that

genes really do matter psychologically as well. The data shows that identical twins share far more

personality traits than fraternal twins, such as outgoingness, emotional instability, interests and acquired

habits.

One of the most fascinating aspects of all this research is the data collected on identical twins separated

at birth.

Statistically, identical twins tend to be around 80 percent the same in everything from stature to health to

IQ to political views. The similarities are partly the product of similar upbringing. But evidence from the

comparison of twins raised apart points rather convincingly to genes as the source of a lot of that

likeness. In 1979 the most widely publicised study of twins separated at birth was carries out by

psychologist Thomas Bouchard and colleagues, that chronicled the fates of about 60 pairs of identical

twins raised separately. Some of the pairs had scarcely met before Bouchard contacted them, and yet the

behaviours, personalities and social attitudes they displayed in lengthy batteries of tests were often

remarkably alike.

The first pair Bouchard met, James Arthur Springer and James Edward Lewis, had just been reunited at

age 39 after being given up by their mother and separately adopted as 1-month-olds. Springer and Lewis,

both Ohioans, found they had each married and divorced a woman named Linda and remarried a Betty.

They shared interests in mechanical drawing and carpentry; their favourite school subject had been math,

their least favourite, spelling. They smoked and drank the same amount and got headaches at the same


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time of day.

Equally astounding was another set of twins, Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe. Separated from his twin six

months after their birth in Trinidad, Oskar was brought up Catholic in Germany and joined the Hitler

Youth. Jack stayed behind in the Caribbean, was raised a Jew and lived for a time in Israel. Yet despite

the stark contrast of their lives, when the twins were reunited in their fifties they had similar speech and

thought patterns, similar gaits, a taste for spicy foods and common peculiarities such as flushing the toilet

before they used it.

Adapted from a story in The Washington Post, Sunday, January 11, 1998

So, what all this information tells us is that genes are equally as important for behavioural characteristics

as well as physical characteristics in humans at least, and its reasonable to assume that the same holds

true for other species as well.

Nurture

Give me a child until he is sevenand I will give you the man"

said St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552).

It takes no leap of faith to accept that, along with the genes, environment must also play a crucial role in

how an organism turns out, but this gem of wisdom from Xavier implies something important that was

even understood 500 years ago. That in humans, the first few years of life are more important for a

childs development than the rest of its life. We now know that the same is true for many animals,

including mammals and birds. But how? And for that matter, why?

The brain is made up of about 100 billion neurons all connected, or synapsed to each other to create one

of the most complicated structures known to man in which there may be 1,000 trillion synapses!

These connections are anything but random and haphazard; in fact each one is incredibly precise. Many of

these connections are made as the foetus develops in the womb, driven by the genetic programs of

nature. However, many other synapses form only after birth and must be activated by external stimuli

(vision, hearing, touch and so on) in order to develop and become fully functional.

So, if the mature brain was a beautiful sculpture, it started life as a rough brick of clay and the hands of

nurture moulded and sculptured it into a priceless masterpiece. And all this sculpting has a sell-by date

it must be complete within a relatively short timeframe of the animals early life.

In 1935 embryologist Hans Spemann won the Nobel Prize for his work on developing amphibian embryos.

Spemann showed that when a section of early embryo was transplanted from one place to another it

caused this tissue to take on the identity of the tissue over which it was implanted. He also found that this

phenomenon only occurred if transplantation occurred within a well defined and narrow time frame of the

embryos early life, and once the transformation had occurred it could not subsequently be reversed by

returning the tissue to its original location. The transplanted tissue had been irreversibly physically altered

by the transplantation, and this could only occur during a critical period of the embryos development.

At around the same time zoologist Konrad Lorenz discovered a similar natural process in baby geese.

When the goslings emerged from their eggs, they became socially attached to the first moving object they

saw, following it around as though it was their mother.

He called this imprinting, suggesting that the mother-image was somehow etched permanently into the

goslings brains. And, like Spemanns embryos, imprinting would only happen within a specific time

window the first 2 days of life in the case of Lorenzs goslings, after which they would not imprint on

anything and would likely perish as a result. Lorenz called this window the critical period of social

attachment.

The work of Spemann and Lorenz stirred up enormous interest for developmental psychologists because


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of its implications on early child development, and the search was on to better understand the

mechanisms behind these critical periods.

In 1981 David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for their research on the development of

the mammalian visual system which greatly broadened our understanding of the vital role of early

experiences on the development of many species.

Critical Periods and Sensitive Periods

Actually, some of these periods are less critical than others, and its useful to think of these ones as

sensitive periods. There is an important difference between a critical period and a sensitive period of

development.

A critical period

is a window of opportunity during which a specific event must occur in order for that stage to proceed

normally. For example, children born with congenital cataracts must have them removed so the eye can

function normally by seeing things before a year or so of age.

Even if the cataract is removed after this critical period, vision will never be acquired in that eye, not

because the eye itself is defective, but because the visual cortex was never stimulated to develop properly

and process visual signals.

Compare this with people who develop cataracts as adults that render them blind for sometimes years

before they are finally removed. Once removed, site is immediately restored and is as good as it ever

was. This is because the visual cortex was stimulated normally during early childhood.

A sensitive period

is a window of opportunity during which, if a specific event occurs, that stage of development wouldproceed more readily than if the event occurred at some other time. For example, learning a second

language, and being able to speak it fluently with the native accent is much easier for children at an early

age. Remarkably, the same cortical language centre of the brain is used in these children for both their

native and the second language. In older children and adults however, the second language is located in a

new language centre quite separate from the native language centre. The optimal sensitive period for

learning a new language is up to around the time of puberty, after that, its much harder.

The Importance of Social Attachment

Maternal behaviour is obviously vital for the survival and wellbeing of the young. But theres another,

equally important side to this story the attachment of the offspring to their parents (the mother in most

mammals).

Like many mammals, humans are a social species and naturally form strong, life-long bonds with their

conspecifics. We dont waste any time and get right down to it from the moment we are born, where we

form a strong bond with those caring for us.

So strong is our human-centricity that theres even a specific area of the brain (called the fusiform face

area; we came across this on the Student Resource Centre for Unit 3) dedicated to recognising faces.

From the moment we first open our eyes, its ready and waiting to seek out a face.

At around 8 months old, as object permanence is developing and babies are becoming more mobile,

something off happens. They develop stranger anxiety a fear of strangers. By 12 months most babies

will cling to a familiar caregiver when frightened, and after a separation will be all hugs and smiles when

reunited.


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It was first believed that social attachment was simply the result of reinforcement the food supplied by

the caregiver was the primary reinforcer, and the caregiver was merely a secondary reinforcer. This was

shown not to be the case by Harry and Margaret Harlow who, in 1959, conducted a cruel experiment on

baby Rhesus monkeys. In order to test the relative importance of food versus contact, baby monkeys

were raised in isolation with 2 artificial mothers placed in the cage with them. One was made of bare wire

mesh with a rough wooden head and had a milk feeding bottle attached to it. The other was made of soft,

velvety cloth that the baby could cling to, but had no milk. The infants overwhelmingly preferred the soft

mother and would only visit the wire mother to feed. This soft mother was also more effective in

decreasing the youngsters fear and the infant would explore more when the cloth mother was present.

So, softness and warmth is more important than nourishment.

In order to develop normally, a monkey must have some interaction with an object to which it can cling

during the first months of life during a critical period. For monkeys clinging is a natural response and

reduces stress.

The Harlows found that the monkeys that survived being raised in isolation for a year never recovered

they were withdrawn, fearful and never managed to interact socially with other monkeys. However, if they

were brought up in isolation, but were placed in a room with a couple of other baby monkeys for just 20

minutes a day, they grew up normally.

In the 1980s a shocking story emerged about the deprivation of children i n Romanian orphanages that

had striking similarities to Harlows monkeys published 20 years earlier. Children reared in isolation for

the first 8 months of life without the opportunity to form attachments are generally damaged for life.

Feral children have also offered scientists a unique opportunity to study the effects of social deprivation.

What happens when a child initially forms a strong attachment to its mother and is then separated?

Studies on adopted children show that 6 to 16 month-olds would not eat, or sleep properly and had

difficulty in forming new bonds with their foster mothers. However, when checked again as 10 year-olds,

these children had grown up normally with no apparent social deficits. Children older than 2, on the other

hand, had much more difficulty adapting to and forming social attachments with their foster mothers.

Clearly, this data has serious implications for a fostering system that moves children around from one

home to another before they can develop strong attachments to any one fosterer.

Stages of Development in Puppies

In 1965, John Paul Scott and John Fuller published a book documenting the largest and most well

documented social experiment ever undertaken on a pet species, dogs, conducted over a 20 year period

at the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Labs in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA.

Scott, J. P. & Fuller J. L. (1965). Genetics and the social behavior of the dog. University of Chicago Press,

ISBN 0-226-74338-1.

Its no exaggeration to say that everything youve heard or read about the social requirements for a litter

of puppies to grow into well balanced dogs, and by extrapolation of this data, a litter of kittens to grow

into well balanced cats, will have been based on this important research.

Scott and Fuller originally identified 4 key stages in the development of puppies the prenatal period, the

neonatal period, the transition period, and the socialisation and juvenile period. Practically, we can ignore

the prenatal period, that time from conception to birth, and update and refine the other 3 periods into

these 5:

1. The neonatal period: 0 to 14 days.2. The transitional period: 2 to 3 weeks.3. The socialisation period: 3 to 12 weeks.


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4. The juvenile period: 12 weeks to sexual maturity.5. The adult period: sexual maturity onwards.

Here are some of the findings they documented for puppies in no particular order:

Puppies can be socialised to humans in just two 20 minute sessions per week. Puppies quickly increase their social contact with an unfamiliar stimulus between 3 and 12 weeks,

but there is a more sensitive period between 6 and 8 weeks. This coincides with the onset of fear

in strange situations.

The best time to expose and socialise puppies is between 6 and 8 weeks, and this would be a goodtime to remove them from the litter.

Puppies should be introduced to all the conditions they are likely to meet as adults by no later than12 weeks.

Puppies kept in restricted conditions until 14 weeks displayed various phobias. Reared with little orno human contact they developed a fear of humans that was incredibly difficult to overcome, if at

all.

About Robert Falconer-Taylor

Robert Falconer-Taylor is a veterinarian specialising in behaviour problems in small animals. He qualified

from the Royal Veterinary College in London in 1981 and first went into mixed veterinary practice and

then into exclusively companion animal practice.

He is a partner and of Veterinary Consultant to theCentre of Applied Pet Ethology (COAPE),which offers a

range of residential and correspondence courses in companion animal behaviour and behaviour therapy,

and a member of the COAPE Association of Pet Behaviourists and Trainers (CAPBT) .He currently devotesmuch of his time as an educator, lecturer, writer on animal welfare and other related issues.

Robert has also spent time in industry as a management consultant and IT specialist and as a trainer to

the veterinary and allied professions. He is the website designer and manager for the COAPE and other

websites.

Contact Robert Falconer-Taylor

BEHAVIOUR PRACTICES & DOG TRAINING CLUB DETAILS:

COAPE Association of Pet Behaviourists and Trainers (www.capbt.org)Tel 0844 344 0817 UK, Outside UK +44 1463 811878

(Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm)

e-Mail:[email protected]
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