ACVB Veterinary Behavior flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

HPA axis

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal cascade releasing CRH, ACTH, then cortisol or corticosterone; negative feedback at hippocampus, hypothalamus, and pituitary regulates stress responses.

GABA-A receptor

Ligand-gated chloride channel mediating fast inhibitory neurotransmission; benzodiazepines increase opening frequency and require endogenous GABA for effect.

Critical socialization period

Developmental window in dogs roughly 3-16 weeks and cats roughly 2-7 weeks when exposure to conspecifics and novelty shapes adult social behavior.

Stereotypy

Repetitive, invariant, seemingly functionless behavior such as crib-biting or pacing, arising from frustration, barren environments, or CNS dysfunction.

Ethogram

A systematic catalog of species-typical behaviors used to quantify frequency, duration, and bout length in observational behavioral studies.

Sign stimulus

A specific cue that releases a fixed action pattern; the response is stereotyped and typically completed once initiated.

Negative reinforcement

Removal or avoidance of an aversive stimulus contingent on a behavior, which increases the future frequency of that behavior.

Counterconditioning

Pairing a feared stimulus with an appetitive stimulus so the conditioned emotional response shifts from fear to a positive association.

Habituation

A decrease in response to a repeated benign stimulus; distinct from sensory adaptation and from extinction of a conditioned response.

Flooding

Exposure to a feared stimulus at full intensity with prevented escape; risks sensitization and welfare compromise and is not first-line.

SSRI mechanism

Selective blockade of serotonin reuptake increasing synaptic 5-HT; clinical onset typically 4-6 weeks due to downstream receptor adaptation.

Serotonin syndrome

Hyperthermia, agitation, tremors, and myoclonus from excess serotonergic activity, often from combining SSRIs, TCAs, tramadol, or MAO inhibitors.

Buspirone

5-HT1A partial agonist used for generalized anxiety and feline urine marking; onset 4-6 weeks and minimal sedation.

Selegiline

Irreversible MAO-B inhibitor approved for canine cognitive dysfunction; contraindicated with SSRIs, TCAs, and sympathomimetics due to serotonin syndrome risk.

Trazodone

Serotonin antagonist and reuptake inhibitor used for situational anxiety and sleep; combining with SSRIs raises serotonin syndrome risk.

Functional analysis

Systematic identification of antecedents, behavior, and consequences (ABC) to determine the contingencies maintaining a problem behavior.

Cognitive dysfunction syndrome

Age-related decline in senior dogs causing disorientation, altered sleep-wake cycles, house soiling, and reduced interaction, diagnosed after excluding systemic disease.

Separation anxiety

Distress occurring only during or anticipating separation, with destruction, vocalization, and elimination; distinguished from confinement distress by video evidence.

Resource guarding

Aggression when a person or animal approaches a valued item; managed with counterconditioning and trade-up exercises, not punishment.

Feline idiopathic cystitis

Stress-associated lower urinary tract disease in cats; environmental enrichment and multimodal environmental modification are first-line management.

Canine compulsive disorder

Repetitive, exaggerated, seemingly functionless behaviors such as tail chasing or flank sucking; treated with SSRIs or TCAs plus enrichment.

Crib-biting

Equine stereotypy involving grasping a surface and swallowing air, linked to limited forage and stall confinement; increases colic risk.

Equine headshaking

Involuntary vertical head movements, often trigeminal-mediated; distinguished from photic and idiopathic forms and managed with nose nets or medication trials.

Feather pecking

Multifactorial poultry welfare problem linked to diet, stocking density, and lack of enrichment; can escalate to cannibalism.

Five Freedoms

Welfare framework comprising freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain and disease, fear and distress, and freedom to express normal behavior.

Five Domains model

Welfare assessment framework covering nutrition, physical environment, health, behavioral interactions, and mental state, emphasizing affective experience.

Three Rs

Research animal ethics principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement guiding humane experimental design and animal use.

Sentience

Capacity for subjective experience such as pain and fear, inferred from neuroanatomy and behavior and forming the ethical basis for welfare law.

Sensitivity

Proportion of truly affected individuals correctly identified as positive by a test; equals true positives divided by all positives.

Type II error

Failure to reject a false null hypothesis, producing a false negative; power equals one minus the Type II error rate.

Confidence interval

Range of plausible values for a parameter; intervals spanning the null value indicate non-significance at the corresponding alpha level.

Randomized controlled trial

Study design assigning participants randomly to intervention or control with blinding and allocation concealment, providing strongest causal inference.