SHORT SPOKEN PRESENTATION

Are T4 or Prolactin levels good indicators of the state of anxiety ?

Claude BEATA, Franoise SCHWOBTHALER
Zoopsy, 46 rue A. Brard 01500 Ambrieux en Bugey cbeata@noos.fr


Recent veterinary literature indicates that Prolactine and/or Thyroxine (T4) levels should be
considered as good indicators of anxiety and this is a frequent clinical finding.
To establish if these feelings were reliable, it has been decided to conduct a survey.
To avoid any controversy about the variations of prolactine regarding the strous status, only
male dogs have been included.
This study has been conducted on 58 dogs presented at general practice or at behavioural
referrals. All investigators were DVM, behaviourist graduated from French National Vtrinary
schools. Most of them were also running a general practice. Only one was only seeing cases of
behaviour disorders at a referral level and so did not contribute to the reference sample. A
sample of normal dogs have been compared to anxious dogs regarding their T4, TSH and
Prolactine levels.
Normal dogs have been defined as dogs with neither a diagnostic of anxious state nor a
diagnostic of any different pathological state. This was assessed by the medical and behavioural
history taken by the practitioner who also was scoring the dog on an EDED Scale.
Results were interesting and somehow surprising
T4 and TSH levels were not found as correlated with a functional diagnostic of anxiety. Some
trnds were found and it can be supposed that with a larger number of cases, results might have
been different. In this study, anyway, no significant correlation could be done.
That was not the same with Prolactine were a significant correlation was founded (consistent
with literature) but
- If there was a significant difference between normal and anxious dogs, the range of
prolactine levels for was wider than the ones described.
- No correlation has been found between EDED scale and prolactine levels. Both tools
need to be used to provide a complete picture of the case.
References
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Corrada, Y., Rimoldi, I., Arreseigor, S., Marecco, G., Gobello, C., 2006, Prolactin reference range and pulsatility in
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