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Burial Behavior: Comparison
Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Tinley Hu and Version 3 by Catherine Yang.

Burial behaviour is the directed displacement of loose substrate over an object, deposit, or food item until it is covered. Its best-characterised form in small mammals is defensive burial, in which a rat displaces bedding with treading movements of the forepaws and shovelling movements of the head directed at a near, immediately threatening stimulus such as an electrified shock prod [1]. The response is suppressed dose-dependently by anxiolytic drugs, which underpins the conditioned defensive burying paradigm [2]. In domestic cats, litter use involves digging and pawing that move litter over the deposit, and cats with elimination problems spend less time digging than unaffected cats [3].

  • burial behaviour
  • defensive burying
  • substrate covering
  • elimination behaviour
  • litter digging

References

  1. Sietse F. De Boer; Jaap M. Koolhaas; Defensive burying in rodents: ethology, neurobiology and psychopharmacology. Eur. J. Pharmacol. 2003, 463, 145-161. [CrossRef]
  2. Dallas Treit; J.P.J. Pinel; H.C. Fibiger; Conditioned defensive burying: A new paradigm for the study of anxiolytic agents. Pharmacol. Biochem. Behav. 1981, 15, 619-626. [CrossRef]
  3. Wailani Sung; Sharon L. Crowell-Davis; Elimination behavior patterns of domestic cats (Felis catus) with and without elimination behavior problems. Am. J. Vet. Res. 2006, 67, 1500-1504. [CrossRef]
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