Social facilitation of trotting: Can horses perceive and adapt to the movement of another horse?
Abstract: Exercise intensity is prone to be self-regulated in horses exercising freely. The main drivers include social, feeding and escape behaviors, as well as the operant conditioning. We hypothesized that self-regulated exercise intensity may increase due to the presence of another horse exercising ahead. Seven horses were assigned to a 2x2 crossover trial following treadmill familiarization. Video images of a trotting horse were displayed on the wall in front of the experimental unit (Visual), which was positioned in the treadmill. Physiological and behavioral markers were further compared with a control visual stimulus (Co), comprising a racetrack image without horses. Horses were sampled during a constant load exercise test (1) at rest (baseline), (2) after the warm-up (0 - 10th minute) and (3) after visual stimulation or control (10th- 12th minutes of the SET) to quantify plasma lactate and glucose concentration, heart rate, head angle, as well as behavioral markers. Following visual stimulation, heart rate (130.8 ± 27.8 b.p.m.) was higher than control (84.7 ± 15.1 b.p.m., P = .017), as was plasma lactate (Visual - 5.28 ± 1.48 mg/dl; Co -3.27 ± 1.24 mg/dl, P = .042) and head angle (Visual - 36.43 ± 3.69°; Co -25.14 ± 4.88°, P = .003). The prevalence of "ears forward" behavior was also higher following Visual (100% - 7/7) than Co (14% - 1/7, P = .004). These results suggest that visual stimulus (1) was safe and well tolerated and (2) prompted the anaerobic lactic pathways and shifted the behavior to a vigilant state. In conclusion, horses were able to perceive and adapt to a social environment. Our findings validate the use of social facilitation of trotting to encourage horses to move forward avoiding the use of the whip.
Copyright: © 2024 Bogossian et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Publication Date: 2024-08-26 PubMed ID: 39186726PubMed Central: PMC11346917DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0309474Google Scholar: Lookup
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- Journal Article
Summary
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This research studies the effect of visual stimuli on the self-regulated exercise intensity of horses, particularly when displaying the image of another exercising horse, with findings suggesting that such stimuli could encourage horses to exert more, thus potentially eliminating the necessity of whips.
Research Method
- The study involved seven horses which underwent a 2×2 crossover trial after being familiarized with a treadmill.
- The experiment was initiated with a “Visual” treatment, where a video of a horse trotting was displayed in front of the experimental unit, placed on the treadmill.
- This visual stimuli was then compared with a “Control” stimulus, comprising an image of a racetrack without any horses.
- The horses were studied through a constant load exercise test during three stages: at rest (baseline), after the warm-up, and after either visual or control stimulation.
Data Collection and Results
- Various physiological and behavioral markers were examined in each stage. These markers included plasma lactate and glucose concentration, heart rate, and the angle of the horse’s head, as well as behavioral markers.
- The results revealed that the horses’ heart rate, plasma lactate, and head angle were significantly higher during the visual stimulation compared to the control.
- The “ears forward” behavior, indicative of vigilance or arousal, was observed more frequently after visual stimulation.
Conclusions
- The research suggests the visual stimulation was not only safe and well tolerated by horses, but it also more successful in inducing anaerobic lactic pathways which prompt higher physical exertion.
- The horses exhibited changes in their behavior, indicating a shift to a more alert state due to the presence of an “other” in their perceived environment.
- This study concludes that horses have the ability to perceive and adapt to a social environment, and that social facilitation of trotting could serve as a method to encourage physical exertion in horses without using a whip.
Cite This Article
APA
Bogossian PM, Pereira JS, da Silva NF, Hilgert AR, Seidel SRT, Fülber J, Belli CB, Fernandes WR.
(2024).
Social facilitation of trotting: Can horses perceive and adapt to the movement of another horse?
PLoS One, 19(8), e0309474.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309474 Publication
Researcher Affiliations
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo, Brazil.
MeSH Terms
- Animals
- Horses / physiology
- Heart Rate / physiology
- Physical Conditioning, Animal / physiology
- Male
- Behavior, Animal / physiology
- Female
- Lactic Acid / blood
- Adaptation, Physiological / physiology
- Blood Glucose
- Cross-Over Studies
- Movement / physiology
- Exercise Test
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
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