Two researchers will soon be studying some rather unusual subjects: epileptic chickens.
“Very little research had been conducted with this unique strain, and due to our interest in developmental ethology, we proposed a study to examine the learning abilities of these chickens and how learning might change across lifespan,” Inga Tiemann said in an e-mail interview.
In 2008, when Tiemann was a research assistant at the Heinrich-Heine University in Dsseldorf, Germany, she participated in a co-operative project with Debbie Kelly, principal investigator in the comparative cognition laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan’s psychology department.
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Tiemann, who now works in Kelly’s lab, learned about epileptic chickens in the summer of 2008.
The chickens carry the gene for photosensitive epilepsy, a form triggered by intermittent light that causes violent seizures.
Tiemann said that on a behavioural level, the cause and effect of epilepsy are the same in chickens and humans, which will allow the researchers to compare their chicken findings with what they know about humans.
“Our goal is to look at the relationship between age and learning abilities and, subsequently, discuss our results with researchers in the field of human epilepsy,” Tiemann said.
The study is set to begin in May, when a new set of chicks hatch.
“We designed the study to follow the development of individuals beginning on their first day,” Tiemann said.
“This will enable us to detect problems when they occur.”
The chickens will be trained to locate a food reward that has been hidden in an enclosed space, a task Tiemann said they are usually able to learn within 10 days.
After learning to find the reward, the chickens are tested in a modified environment.
“For example, the chickens are trained to locate a distinctive feature, which also indicates the location of the hidden food,” Tiemann said.
Researchers will then remove this feature, usually a particular picture, from the testing area and the chickens will have to use other cues to locate the food.
They will go through this training and testing process three times: as chicks, then as adolescents and finally as older adults.
The difference between the searching behaviour of the epileptic chickens and those in the control group will allow Tiemann and Kelly to gather more data about the effects of seizures.
“We would expect the epileptic chickens to show problems within the visual-spatial learning task, which become more prevalent with age and are likely due to a history of seizures,” Tiemann said.
The Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation awarded Tiemann a research grant to fund the study.
The $100,000 grant is to be used over a two-year period.
