SmellWell: Uncovering the overlooked link between farm animal olfaction and positive emotions

Olfaction and wellbeing are strongly linked in humans, and odours may be used to improve mental health.

In [SmellWell], I will bring together the science of neurobiology and ethology to uncover how odours impact and govern animal emotions, and explore how this knowledge can be harnessed to improve animal environments.

Ongoing work under my lead has shown that pigs perceive odours as a resource [1] and some odours elicit behaviours indicative of excitement or pleasure [2]. [SmellWell] will build on these promising results to establish how the olfactory environment affects emotional states of animals using the pig as the model species.

Over the 4-years, SmellWell will be first of its kind to 1) uncover how odours and emotions are linked in macrosmatic animal species, 2) establish if and how odours can modulate emotions of animals, 3) determine if and how animals are able to form lasting odour associations, and 4) decipher if odours and odour associations can be used to improve animal welfare.

In this endeavour, SmellWell will study neurobiology (detection, perception, and memory), physiology (physiological parameters of emotions e.g., heart rate, oxytocin), and ethology (behaviour, learning, ecology, and welfare) combined. SmellWell will significantly progress our understanding of the behavioural neuroscience behind odour perception.

Ultimately, the project could revolutionise the way we assess what good welfare entails for animals kept for biomedical research and farming.