Double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of venlafaxine to treat behavioural disorders in cats: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVES: Venlafaxine, a specific inhibitor of both noradrenaline and serotonin, is commonly used in human medicine to treat depression, anxiety and social phobia. Its formulation in small granules renders it interesting to test on cats, which are usually reluctant to take medication. Venlafaxine was administered at 1 mg/kg for 60 days, using a double-blind, placebo-controlled protocol, to cats aged ⩾6 months exhibiting aggressiveness, fear or house-soiling. METHODS: After one cat's withdrawal, 21 cats were included in the study: 11 in the venlafaxine group and 10 in the placebo group. Three consultations were conducted, on day 0, day 30 and day 60. Each visit consisted of (1) veterinarian- and owner-based scoring of the cat's behavioural improvement; (2) scoring of the cat's compliance with removal from its carrier and compliance with manipulation; and (3) owner scoring of the ease of administration and recording of the potential adverse effects of the treatment. RESULTS: Improvement was significantly higher in the venlafaxine group; as early as day 30, according to the veterinarian scoring, and at day 60, according to both the veterinarian and owner scoring. In contrast, neither the removal nor the manipulation scores were significantly different between the two treatment groups. Venlafaxine seemed to improve all three studied signs, as early as day 30 for fear and aggressiveness, and at day 60 for house-soiling. The adverse effects of venlafaxine were limited to drowsiness in one cat. All cats tolerated the treatment well during the 60-day period. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These results suggest that venlafaxine is efficient in treating several behavioural problems and is easy to administer. More studies should be conducted to explore its effects at different dosages on specific diagnoses.

Clinical evaluation of the effects of a single oral dose of gabapentin on fear-based aggressive behaviors in cats during veterinary examinations.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of a single oral dose of gabapentin on fear-based aggressive behaviors (FABs) in cats during veterinary examinations. ANIMALS: 55 healthy pet cats (26 with and 29 without a history of FAB during veterinary visits [FAB and untreated control groups, respectively]). PROCEDURES: A standardized 9-step clinical examination protocol (with patient compliance scored from 0 to 9 according to the highest completed step) was tested on untreated control group cats. The protocol was then used in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover-design trial in which FAB-group cats received owner-administered gabapentin (100 or 200 mg/cat) or placebo capsules 2 hours before the first of 2 veterinary visits and received the alternate treatment before the second visit ≥ 1 day later. Ease of administration (scored from 1 [very difficult] to 4 [very easy]) and adverse effects were recorded. Compliance scores were compared between treatments for the FAB group and between FAB and untreated control groups. Changes in scores between treatments for the FAB group were used to investigate associations between selected variables and the outcome of interest. RESULTS: FAB group compliance scores after gabapentin administration (median, 9; range, 0 to 9) were significantly higher than scores after placebo administration (median 0.5; range, 0 to 7) and did not differ from scores for the untreated control group. Owner scores indicated capsule administration was easy. Adverse effects (most commonly drowsiness, myorelaxation, and ataxia) resolved ≤ 10 hours after detection. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Results suggested oral administration of gabapentin to cats 2 hours before a veterinary visit can reduce FAB during physical examination, enabling more complete evaluation.

Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Cyproterone Acetate to Prevent Flare-Up Effect on Dogs Implanted With Deslorelin.

Deslorelin slow-released implants are registered in Europe for the reversible suppression of fertility in male dogs. After administration, a time-limited increase in sex hormones concentration and related behavioral problems may be observed. The aim of this work was to assess whether cyproterone acetate, a synthetic progestogen, can prevent this flare-up effect. Eighteen privately-owned entire male dogs were enrolled in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial. All subjects received a 4.7 mg deslorelin implant by SC route and 1-3 capsules containing either cyproterone acetate 2 mg/kg (N = 9) or a placebo (N = 9), by oral route BID for 14 days, depending on the dog's weight. The dogs were followed for 28 days. An increase in the blood testosterone concentration was observed in respectively 9/9 and 7/9 dogs of the control and cyproterone groups (p = 0.47). However, a worsening of the sex hormone related problems (i.e., urinary marking, mounting, aggressiveness toward other dogs and/or escape) was only observed in the placebo group, in 56 or 66% of the dogs as measured by respectively the veterinarian and the owners. Our study suggests that cyproterone acetate is effective and safe to supress the deslorelin induced behavioral flare-up effect, but not the rise in testosterone.

Effects of a single oral dose of gabapentin on storm phobia in dogs: A double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial.

BACKGROUND: Storm phobia in companion dogs is a common disorder that significantly impacts dogs' welfare. Gabapentin, the action of which is only partially understood, is widely used for its antiepileptic and analgesic properties. Only recently, the veterinary community began to use gabapentin to address phobia and anxiety in dogs. This study tested gabapentin to lower fear responses of dogs during a thunderstorm event. METHODS: Eighteen dogs suffering from storm phobia completed our double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. Each dog's behaviour was evaluated twice by his owner: once under placebo, once under gabapentin. The treatment was orally administered at least 90 min before the exposure. Gabapentin was given at a dose ranging from 25 to 30 mg/kg. RESULTS: Our results indicate a significant reduction of the fear responses of dogs under gabapentin. The adverse effects were rare, and the most frequent amongst them was ataxia. CONCLUSION: In this trial, gabapentin appears to be an efficient and safe molecule that should be considered as part of the treatment plan of storm phobia in dogs.

The processing of positional information in a two-item sequence limits the emergence of symmetry in baboons (Papio papio), but not in humans (Homo sapiens).

When trained to associate Stimulus A to Stimulus B, humans can derive the untrained symmetrical B to A relation while nonhuman animals have much more difficulties. Urcuioli (2008, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 90, 257--282; 2015, Conductal, 3, 4--25) proposed that the apparent difficulty of animals in symmetry testing reflects their double encoding of the information on the stimuli (identity and relation) and their positional (i.e., spatial and temporal/ordinal) characteristics. This comparative study tested the emergence of symmetry in humans and baboons in a task in which the position of the stimuli was manipulated independently of their relation. Humans and baboons initially learned to associate pairs of visual shapes on a touch screen in a specific order. Three pairs of (A-B, C-D, and E-F) stimuli were used in training. After training, the two species were tested with the B-A, F-C, and E-D pairs. The B-A pairs preserved the association initially learned with A-B but reversed the positional information relative to training. The F-C pair neither preserved the association nor the positional information of the training pairs, and positional information were the only cues preserved in the E-D pair. Humans showed a response time advantage for B-A, suggesting symmetry, but also for E-D, suggesting that they also process positional information. In baboons, the advantage was found only for E-D, suggesting that they only process positional information. These results confirm that the processing of stimulus pairs differ between nonhuman animals to humans.

Categorization does not promote symmetry in Guinea baboons (Papio papio).

Humans have the capacity to use stimuli interchangeably by forming equivalence classes, and this ability seems to be supported by our language system. According to Sidman and Tailby (Conditional discrimination vs. matching to sample: an expansion of the testing paradigm. J Exp Anal Behav 37:5-22, 1982), the formation of equivalence classes require that three relations are derived among the class members, and past experiments have shown that one of these relations, i.e., symmetry, corresponding to the ability to reverse a relation (if A â†’ B, then B â†’ A), is extremely difficult to obtain in non-human animals. Because language development and the ability to form equivalence classes both co-occur in children with an increased ability to form categories, the current study tested the idea that category learning might promote symmetry in a nonhuman primate species. In Experiment 1, twelve Guinea baboons (Papio papio) were trained to associate 60 pictures of bears and 60 pictures of cars to two category labels, before being tested in symmetry trials. In Experiment 2, symmetry was trained and tested by reversing the association order between labels and pictures, using a new set of stimuli. In both experiments, the baboons successfully demonstrated category discrimination, but had only a weak (though significant) tendency to respond in accordance with symmetry during test trials. Altogether, our results confirm that symmetry is inherently difficult in non-human animals. We discuss possible explanations for such a limitation and give reasons for thinking that the effects of categorization on symmetry should be further investigated.

Behavioral assessment of combinatorial semantics in baboons (Papio papio).

Combinatorial semantics is a core property of human language whose mechanisms remain poorly known. This study used computerized tasks with touch screens to investigate whether baboons (Papio papio) can understand the combination of shape and color labels in order to designate their corresponding colored shape. The baboons were trained either directly with label-pairs (Experiment 1) or with individual shape and color labels (Experiment 2), before being tested with novel compound labels from which they had to identify the referent. Compound labels understanding was found in one out of seven baboons tested in Experiment 1. Quite surprisingly, none of the 11 baboons showed this capacity in Experiment 2. We discuss several aspects of our protocols which could explain this difference between our two experiments, as well as the significance of our findings for language studies in animals and children.