Travain Tiziano, Valsecchi Paola
Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, della Vita, e della Sostenibilità Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 17/A, 43124 Parma, Italy.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Aug 26;11(9):2510. doi: 10.3390/ani11092510.
Whether animals have emotions was historically a long-lasting question but, today, nobody disputes that they do. However, how to assess them and how to guarantee animals their welfare have become important research topics in the last 20 years. Infrared thermography (IRT) is a method to record the electromagnetic radiation emitted by bodies. It can indirectly assess sympathetic and parasympathetic activity via the modification of temperature of different body areas, caused by different phenomena such as stress-induced hyperthermia or variation in blood flow. Compared to other emotional activation assessment methods, IRT has the advantage of being noninvasive, allowing use without the risk of influencing animals' behavior or physiological responses. This review describes general principles of IRT functioning, as well as its applications in studies regarding emotional reactions of domestic animals, with a brief section dedicated to the experiments on wildlife; it analyzes potentialities and possible flaws, confronting the results obtained in different taxa, and discusses further opportunities for IRT in studies about animal emotions.
动物是否有情感在历史上是一个长期存在的问题，但如今，没有人会质疑它们具有情感。然而，在过去20年里，如何评估动物情感以及如何保障动物福利已成为重要的研究课题。红外热成像（IRT）是一种记录物体发出的电磁辐射的方法。它可以通过不同身体部位温度的变化间接评估交感神经和副交感神经活动，这些温度变化是由诸如应激性体温过高或血流变化等不同现象引起的。与其他情感激活评估方法相比，IRT具有非侵入性的优点，使用时不会影响动物行为或生理反应。本综述描述了IRT的工作原理，以及它在有关家畜情感反应研究中的应用，并有一个简短的部分专门介绍了野生动物实验；分析了其潜力和可能存在的缺陷，对比了不同分类群中获得的结果，并讨论了IRT在动物情感研究中的更多机会。
