Lester O'brien’s scientific contributions

Although the well-being of elephants in captivity is of paramount importance, the confinement of these long-lived, highly intelligent, and socially complex animals continues to present significant challenges. Here, we provide an overview of the current state of elephant confinement (primarily in the West) by examining captive facilities, improvements, and continuing problems, and the clinical/behavioral/ neural issues that remain. Specifically, we examine quantitative and qualitative aspects of the enclosed space, sociocognitive factors, dietary differences, and health/ welfare concerns (e.g., stereotypies, physical health, nutrition, reproduction, life expectancy). The challenges of the captive environment become especially salient when juxtaposed next to the complex, multifaceted characteristics of the elephant's natural environment. Despite the best efforts of some facilities to improve the captive environment, serious welfare challenges remain. Such confinement issues thus raise important welfare and ethical concerns with regards to captive elephant well-being.

The present review assesses the potential neural impact of impoverished, captive environments on large-brained mammals, with a focus on elephants and cetaceans. These species share several characteristics, including being large, wide-ranging, long-lived, cognitively sophisticated, highly social, and large-brained mammals. Although the impact of the captive environment on physical and behavioral health has been well-documented, relatively little attention has been paid to the brain itself. Here, we explore the potential neural consequences of living in captive environments, with a focus on three levels: (1) The effects of environmental impoverishment/enrichment on the brain, emphasizing the negative neural consequences of the captive/impoverished environment; (2) the neural consequences of stress on the brain, with an emphasis on corticolimbic structures; and (3) the neural underpinnings of stereotypies, often observed in captive animals, underscoring dysregulation of the basal ganglia and associated circuitry. To this end, we provide a substantive hypothesis about the negative impact of captivity on the brains of large mammals (e.g., cetaceans and elephants) and how these neural consequences are related to documented evidence for compromised physical and psychological well-being.