Impact of canine epilepsy on judgement and attention biases

摘要: Idiopathic epilepsy (IE) is the most common chronic neurological condition in dogs, characterised by recurrent seizure activity and associated with negative behavioural cognitive changes. We hypothesised that IE would negatively impact putative affective state, dogs exhibiting a more pessimistic judgement bias attention than controls. Dogs were tested previously-validated spatial task, novel auditory task testing to sounds different valence or salience (neutral, pre-habituated, threatening). Sixty-eight (IE = 33, Control = 35) tested, of which n = 37 acquired discrimination responses probes (IE = 19, Control = 18), n = 36 for (IE = 20, Control = 16). Study groups did not significantly differ age, sex, breed neuter-status (p > 0.05). Main effects study group significant (F1,102 = 0.20, p = 0.658) tasks (F3,102 = 1.64, p = 0.184). In contrast our hypotheses, there was no evidence altered biases this population; however, likely be unable learn (p = 0.019), may reflect IE-related deficits. Developing methods test state without excluding cognitively impaired individuals future challenge animal welfare science.