Author Archives: K of Kyrene

Stress in wild and captive snakes: quantification, effects and the importance of management – Waeyenberge et al. 2018 Introduction: Stress responses can be seen in all vertebrates and snakes are not the exception. Stressors are known to cause the subject to have a lack of control over the situation by adding a component of uncertainty.Continue reading “sheds, shit and blood – observing snake stress markers”

The value of enrichment to reintroduction success- Reading et al. 2013 Introduction: Environmental enrichment is defined as an animal husbandry principle that enhances the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli needed for optimal psychological and physiological well being. Animals that are raised for release need to a wide rangeContinue reading “Enrichment and Population Recovery”

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Placebo Effects: Concepts, Predictions, and Physiology – Geuter et al. 2107 Introduction: This paper looks at the effectiveness of sham treatments/placebos and the manner in which they affect the physiological mechanisms related to the benefits they cause. A cool way they phrase this is by saying “How does the central nervousContinue reading “Neurology to Physiology”

Social enrichment reverses the isolation-induced deficits of neuronal plasticity in the hippocampus of male rats – Biggio et al. 2019 Introduction: Adolescence is a critical life stage for subjects because this is a time when the brain is exhibiting high functions and high amounts of adaption, and if stressed during this time it can causeContinue reading “Reversible Brain Deficits from Social isolation”

Neurobehavioural effects of restricted and unpredictable environmental enrichment in rats – Rojas-Carvajal et al. 2020 Introduction: Teasing apart how and why animals react the way they do to different environmental conditions would shed some light as to why EE works for some human subjects but not others. This is to do with the complex relationshipContinue reading “Durations of Enrichment Play a Critical Role in Brain Development”

Environmental enrichment, new neurons and the neurobiology of individuality – Kempermann, 2019 Introduction: Environmental enrichment (EE or ENRs as stated in this paper) is basically known as a combination of inanimate and social stimulation. EE is hard to compare sometimes b/c so many studies used different set ups like keeping the cage size the sameContinue reading “Environmental Enrichment in Neuroscience – A review”

Neural Consequences of environmental enrichment – Praag et al. 2000 Brief introduction: There are a lot of studies that claim environmental stimulation has positive effects on the brain and brain function with neuronal plasticity. Basically when one cell excites another repeatedly over time, it or both gets better at this process with observable differences inContinue reading “Enrichment on neural pathways”

Investigating personality in vipers: individual rattlesnakes exhibit consistent behavioral responses in defensive and exploratory contexts – Gibert et al. 2022 Abstract: This paper looks at personality in 20 captive Western rattlesnakes using 5 repeated trials including a handling assay, an open field test and a threat assay. They found that certain behaviours related to exploration,Continue reading “Personality found in rattlesnakes”