Effect of administration of adrenalin on immobility reaction in domestic fowl.

Abstract

Two experiments were performed which lend support to the hypothesis that tonic immobility is mediated by fear. In Experiment 1, chickens subcutaneously injected with adrenalin remained immobile for a significantly greater duration than chickens injected subcutaneously with physiological saline. In Experiment 2, it was found that a subcutaneous injection of adrenalin both facilitated the onset and maintained the duration of the immobility reaction in nonsusceptible birds which previously showed no immobility. An injection of physiological saline neither facilitated nor maintained the immobility reaction in a control group of nonsusceptible chicks.By inverting an organism and manually restraining it for a brief period of time, an investigator can elicit an immobility reaction. Typically the animal initially struggles; but after a few seconds, the struggling subsides and when the experimenter removes his hand, the animal remains immobile. This period of immobility may last from a few seconds to several hours; and during this state, the organism usually exhibits hypertonicity, gross tremors of the extremities, analgesia, and marked changes in heart and respiratory rate. At the offset of the reaction the organism will spontaneously right itself and may often attempt to escape from the experimenter and induction area.The immobility reaction of animals throughout the phylogenetic scale from planarians through primates (Hoagland, 1928;Volgyesi, 1963) has been studied. The first published account of the phenomenon was written in 1646 and entitled, "Father Kircher's remarkable experiment of bewitching a fowl" (Volgyesi, 1963). In the ensuing 300 yr., Father Kircher's "bewitchment mechanism" has been replaced by a variety of other proposals which have attempted to account for this peculiar response pattern. Such theories have included hypnosis, sleep, cerebral inhibition, spatial 1 Requests for reprints should be sent to William

Predatory overtones of open-field testing in chickens

“…In fact, freezing in response to novel sounds is so reliable in at least one species that it has been used as an index of auditory thresholds (Miller & Murray, 1966). In Experiment 4, adrenalin also served to enhance behaviors in an open field that would be most adaptive during a predatory encounter (i.e., delayed initiation of movement and vocalization), and adrenalin has been shown to prolong tonic immobility (Braud & Ginsburg, 1973;Hoagland, 1928;Klemm, 1977;Thompson et al, 1977).…”

“…As further support for the role of fear, systemic injections of adrenalin increase durations of tonic immobility in chickens (Braud & Ginsburg, 1973;Thompson, Scuderi, & Boren, 1977), lizards (Hoagland, 1928), and frogs (Klemm, 1977). The fourth experiment sought to determine whether adrenalin would produce a corresponding change in open-field behavior.…”

Genetic influence on tonic immobility in chickens

“…Tonic immobility seems to represent an unlearned fear reaction (Braud & Ginsburg, 1973;Gallup, Nash, Potter, & Donegan, 1970;Maser, Gallup, & Barnhill, 1973), although many other mechanisms have been postulated (see Ratner, 1967). In terms of its possible ecological significance, immobility may be, or may have been, involved in predator-prey relationships and could represent a terminal defensive reaction in a distance-dependent series of sequential predator defenses (Gallup, Nash, Donegan, & McClure, 1971;Ratner, 1967).…”

Tyrosine and Tryptophan Influence on Tonic Immobility in the Chicken

“…The habituation procedure was utilized to minimize between-subject variability (Braud and Ginsburg, 1973;Nash and Gallup, 1976).…”