zakład Behawioru i Dobrostanu Zwierząt

SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS

1. Factors influencing canine discrimination of odour of exhaled breath of cancer patients from breath odour of healthy people have been assessed [Walczak et al., 2012 - Journal of Veterinary Behavior – Clinical Applications doi: 10.1016/j.jveb.2012.01.001].
2. It was shown that trained dogs identify women better than men on the base of individual body odour, probably due to the differences in chemical composition and higher odour “attractivity”. [Jezierski et al., 2012 - Journal of Forensic Sciences 57. 647-653].
3. The effectiveness of drugs and explosives detection and percent of false alerts by police special dogs, depending on dog breed, gender, kind and amount of material, searching site, dogs’ competence level and working style, was assessed 
4. A hypothesis concerning mechanisms of locomotor behaviours in humans during sleep has been put forward. The proposed model assumes that an increased activity of serotonergic system during slow-wave sleep provides a tonic excitatory drive that gates afferent inputs to motoneurons [Juszczak and Świergiel, 2005 - Medical Hypotheses 64 28-32]. 
5. A method for automatic analysis of behaviour of laboratory animals during tests using the computer program EthoVision has been elaborated [Juszczak et al., 2006 - Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behaviour85, 2, 332-338].
6. It has been found that endotoxins inducing sickness behaviour do not disturb animal responses to essential enivronmental cues. This shows that sickness behaviour can be regarded as adaptative and defence reaction fitted to the current needs of the organism [Juszczak et al., 2008 - Brain Behavior and Immunity 22 (1), 74-79]. 
7. It was found that selection of model animals for stress susceptibility response influences a transcriptomic profile in the central nervous system (CNS), mainly in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus and that a chronic stress causes a substantial increase of expression of genes responsible for neurodegenerative process [Lisowski et al., 2011- European Neuropsychopharmacology  21, 45-62].
8.  It has been found that an effective divergent selection of rabbit’s lines for locomotor activity in „open field” test resulted in correlated response in weigh gains and fertility. Applying the analysis of individual and representative DNA fingerprinting a specific minisatellite allele of 15 kbp was found in low activity line and no specific allele was found in the line selected for high activity [Sacharczuk et al., 2005 - Animal Science Papers and Reports 23, 2, 107-117].
9. Using a battery of behavioral tests involving passive and active contact with humans and evaluation of questionnaires, it was shown that reactivity towards humans and fearfulness of horses reflect avoidance of a potential harm. The usefulness of these tests for evaluation of horses’ reactivity in field conditions has been proven [Górecka-Bruzda et al., 2011 - Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133, 3-4, 207-215].
10. Applying a factorial analysis it has been shown that major traits related to the behaviour of sport horses can be classified in 3 groups: “cooperation with humans”, “jumping potential” and “dressage potential” which contribution to the overall variability of traits amounted to 64.6%. It was shown that the sport career of a horse is more related to its willingness to cooperate with the rider, the behaviour during ride and handling than to the horse’s physical sport potential [Górecka-Bruzda et al., 2011 - Livestock Science136, 207-215].