Companion Animals Symposium: Environmental enrichment for companion, exotic, and laboratory animals

Animal scientists have an extraordinary burden to promote the health and well-being of all animals in their care. Promoting species- or breed-appropriate behaviors through proper training and enrichment, regardless of animal housing, should be a paramount concern for all animal scientists working with exotic animals, laboratory animals, shelter animals, or privately owned pet animals. Developing ideal training and enrichment programs for any species begins with understanding basic behavior patterns and emotional systems of animals. The basic emotional systems in mammals have been extensively mapped; however, most of these studies are in the neuroscience literature and seldom read by animal science professionals. The emotional circuits for fear have been well documented through studies demonstrating that lesions to the amygdala will block both conditioned and unconditioned fear behaviors. Additionally, other core emotional systems including seeking (i.e., approaching a novel stimulus), rage, panic (e.g., separation stress), play, lust (i.e., sex drive), and care (e.g., mother-young nurturing behavior) have been identified. More recent neuroscience research has discovered the subcortical brain regions that drive different types of seeking behaviors. Research to increase the understanding of the emotional systems that drive both abnormal and normal animal behaviors could greatly improve animal welfare by making it possible to provide more effective environmental enrichment programs. Enrichment devices and methods could be specifically designed to enable the expression of highly motivated behaviors that are driven by emotional circuits in the brain. The objective of this paper is to increase awareness of animal scientists to the field of neuroscience studying animal emotions and the application of that science to improve the welfare of captive exotic animals, laboratory animals, and pets with environmental enrichment.