With that problem solved, the real experiments could begin, designed to record brain activity of cats in response to smelling certain substances or seeing different wavelengths of colored light. The kitty subjects were housed as a group in an environment with lighting, temperature, and humidity controls, along with perches, beds, scratching posts, and cat toys.
Electrodes were attached with no need to shave the cats’ hair, thanks to a conductive paste to improve electrode/skin contact. First they recorded the basal activity before moving to exposure to sensory stimuli: a grapefruit smell for olfactory stimulation, and red, blue, and green lighting in a darkened room for visual stimulation.
Granted, there were still a few motion artifacts in that data; two cats were excluded from the data analysis for that reason. And the authors acknowledged the small sample size and largely descriptive nature of their analysis, which they deemed appropriate for what is essentially a test of the feasibility of their approach. The study met the group’s primary objectives: to assess whether the EEG method was feasible with conscious cats and whether the resulting analytical methods were an efficient means to characterize how the cats responded to specific sensory stimuli. “This opens new avenues for investigating chronic pain mechanisms and developing novel therapeutic strategies,” the authors concluded.
Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2024.110254 (About DOIs).