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The team
Researchers
Juliette Cognié
Cognié Juliette
juliette.cognie@inrae.fr
33 (0)2 47 42 75 17
Research engineer, INRAE
Equipe CEB, UMR PRC

Career

  • 1993–2003: Veterinary practice in companion animal medicine and surgery, Centre region, France.
  • 2003–2017: Research Engineer in Animal Experimentation at the Reproductive Physiology and Behaviour (PRC) research unit, INRA Val de Loire Centre. Responsible for surgery at the CIRE platform (Surgery and Imaging for Research and Teaching).
  • 2017–2020: Research Engineer in Animal Biology within the PRC’s Midynnet team.
  • 2021: Research Engineer within the Cognition, Ethology and Animal Welfare (CEB) team.

Activities

  • Surgery: Developing and refining surgical approaches. Implementing and monitoring a research project aimed at making a surgical procedure commonly used in livestock farming minimally invasive, and disseminating its findings.
  • Animal health monitoring: Overseeing animal housing and care conditions at UEPAO.
  • Training: Contributing to mandatory training for personnel who design or perform animal experiments, and helping organise continuing professional development courses on new surgical approaches, cooperative care training, and ethology and welfare in animal experimentation.
  • Regulation: Member of INRA’s Animal Experimentation Bureau and, for two years, of the National Commission on Animal Experimentation. Contributing to ministerial working groups aimed at improving the ethical review process for research projects.
  • Ethics: Chair of the Val de Loire Ethics Committee since May 2015. Member of the national network of ethics committees for animal experimentation.

 

HAL : Dernières publications

  • [hal-05632357] Horses’ cross-modal recognition of human emotions extends to fear vs joy

    Domesticated animals are part of human societies, and understanding human-animal interactions is therefore of fundamental importance to improve animal welfare and our relationship. In particular, studying how animals perceive human emotions allows to better understand their reactions in human-animal interactions. In the past decade, domestic mammals have indeed been shown to perceive and react to human emotions, with a cognitive integration of both visual and vocal signals in their representation of human joy and anger. To date, few studies have focused on animals' perception of human fear, despite the ubiquity of this emotion across contexts and species. In this study, we investigated horses' cross-modal recognition of human facial and vocal expressions of joy and fear. Thirty-three horses were subjected to two simultaneous soundless videos, showing respectively a fearful and a joyful human face. These videos were accompanied by a playback of either a fearful or a joyful voice. Horses made significantly more ear movements when looking at the face expressing the emotion incongruent with the sound compared to the face expressing the emotion congruent with the sound, demonstrating cross-modal recognition of human fear and joy. Moreover, they looked longer at the joyful faces than the fearful faces and made more half-blinks (AU47) when looking at the fearful faces than the joyful faces. These results have implications for the human-horse relationship, as a deeper understanding of how horses respond to human emotions can improve communication and welfare in equestrian contexts. Moreover, these findings highlight domestic mammals' advanced cognitive capacities toward humans.

    ano.nymous@ccsd.cnrs.fr.invalid (Plotine Jardat) 04 Jun 2026

    https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05632357v1
  • [hal-05273345] Death, Retirement, or Redeployment for Unproductive Farm Animals? Dispositional Tensions in Organizational Routines

    Human–animal relationships, including ethic of care relationships, are of growing interest to organization studies, reflecting the substantial role of animals in organizing processes. While some scholars approach these as working relationships, few studies examine the organizational routines established to manage animals in the period after they have been retired due to age, illness, or lack of productiveness. Through a multiple case study of four contrasting sectors in France (dairy ewes, horses, experimental animals, hens), we take a Foucauldian theoretical standpoint, based on the concept of ‘Dispositif,’ to map and analyze the different patterns and dynamics of this organizational routine. Our results indicate that ‘death’ organizational patterns are the most common, with animals other than horses typically being killed immediately upon retirement. However, operators often attempt to implement work-around organizational patterns to ‘save’ animals and ensure them a decent retirement. We explore the numerous and complex interactions between heterogeneous elements that form the different patterns of the routine (actors, instruments, discourses, values, places, machines, etc.), to explain how the routine is both a driver and a result of ‘ethical blindness’ or ‘ethical foresight’ in the management of culled animals. We then interpret the dynamic of the routine as a complex interplay between three major dispositives that govern our relationships with animals. Unfolding and understanding this interplay is useful for progressively acting on various levers (such as artifacts of the routine) and for collectively endeavoring toward a long-term commitment to ethical foresight.

    ano.nymous@ccsd.cnrs.fr.invalid (François Charrier) 13 Mar 2026

    https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05273345v1
  • [hal-03744960] Early castration in foals: Consequences on physical and behavioural development

    Background The impact of very early castration of foals has not yet been studied despite the many positive effects observed in dogs and cats. Objectives The objective of the study was to compare castration at 3 days and 18 months and assess their subsequent morphological and behavioural development. Study design This was a randomised, blinded clinical study. Methods Twenty-two Welsh ponies underwent either early (3-day old, EC group, n = 11) or traditional (18-month old, TC group, n = 11) castration. Animals were followed up to 3 years of age. All ponies were castrated using a primary closure technique under general anaesthesia. Weight and morphometric measurements were monitored monthly from birth until 8 months of age in both groups. Then, measurements were taken every 3 months until 2 years of age and then every 6 months until 3 years of age. Temperament tests were performed on all animals when they were 1- and 3-years old. Results No differences were observed between the EC and TC groups in terms of physical development from birth until 40 months of age or in terms of temperament and behaviour at either 1 or 3 years of age. Main limitations The study included only one breed (Welsh ponies) and only 22 animals that were castrated before 2 years of age, precluding comparison with castration performed at older ages. Conclusions We demonstrate that early castration at 3 days does not interfere with morphological or behavioural development.

    ano.nymous@ccsd.cnrs.fr.invalid (Juliette Cognie) 03 Aug 2022

    https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03744960v1