Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The aim of this Discovery research program is to better understand internal and external factors that affect sleep in young animals, using dairy calves as a model. This research builds upon my NSERC Discovery Development Grant, integrating themes from my larger research program on understanding environmental factors that disrupt the expression of natural behaviours in animals. Sleep is considered essential for all animals. Obtaining adequate rest is especially critical in early life, as observational research using children has found that disturbed sleep results in poor cognitive functioning, increased risk of anxiety or depressive symptoms, less prosocial behaviour, attention problems, and more aggressive behaviour. However, less is known about the role of sleep in other young mammals such as dairy calves. Dairy calves are ideal for this line of inquiry, as they are exposed to several routine management practices that likely disturb sleep, including painful procedures like disbudding and castration, periods of food deprivation that induce hunger, and environmental stressors on dairy farms like variable light and noise. The proposed research program will develop our understanding of factors that affect sleep in young animals, as well as help elucidate the mechanisms linking sleep loss in early life to later problems such as poor cognitive functioning. The specific objectives are to: 1) explore the effects of internal stressors, such as chronic pain and hunger, on sleep in young animals, and 2) understand the effect of external stressors, such as noise and light, on sleep in young animals, and 3) describe the downstream effects of sleep disturbance on young animals, including the relationship between vigilance and cognitive performance. This program will contribute to the training of two PhD, one MSc and five undergraduate students in a collaborative and inclusive environment where they will work together to achieve the research objectives. These highly qualified personnel will be well-supported, regardless of their cultural background, gender, race, or other individual difference, as they strive to develop novel insights to contribute to the animal welfare and sleep literature. Results from this research will be an important foundation for further work investigating other aspects of sleep in animals, such as long-term effects of sleep loss on mood and health. As dairy calves may experience sleep loss due to routine management practices in commercial agriculture, the results from this work will also be directly relevant to veterinarians and dairy producers responsible for making decisions about their care. Developing scholarship in understanding the natural behaviours in animals, such as sleeping, will also help address important and timely societal concerns about the welfare of farm animals such as dairy cattle.