Developing behavioural methods to assess pain in horses

截至2022年7月1日，奥利维亚·库里开始了一个新的博士项目，在凯西·德怀尔、朱丽叶·邓肯和杰玛·皮尔森的监督下，开发行为方法来评估马的疼痛。这个学生项目将采用跨学科合作的方法，研究与马草病(EGS)相关的原因、风险因素和诊断。生物和环境因素都将被调查，学生有机会回顾所有可用的研究，并使用多学科方法，找出知识差距，并进行相关研究，以阐明病因和风险因素。之前的研究着眼于单个潜在的病原体，到目前为止在确定病原体方面的失败表明它可能是多因素的。这项研究项目的主要方面将包括：-开发一个相关和新颖的体外系统，包括来自马的3D肠道培养物，以便能够研究在体外培养物与一些可能与马草病有关的主要候选病原体的挑战后的早期宿主-病原体相互作用。-调查在马身上使用唾液作为一种非侵入性测试，以检测宿主对可能在诱发马草病中发挥作用的潜在病原体的一系列候选抗原的免疫反应。-该项目的样本将在选定的近年来草病流行的地区进行纵向研究。-建立一个国家生物库和数据库，包括开发问卷，与兽医、马主和研究人员合作，从EGS病例和对照中收集生物和环境样本。

As of 1st July 2022, Olivia Curry commenced a new PhD project Developing behavioural methods to assess pain in horses under the Supervision of Cathy Dwyer, Juliet Duncan and Gemma Pearson.This studentshi project will look at the causes, risk factors and diagnoses associated with Equine Grass Sickness (EGS), adopting an inter-disciplinary collaborative approach. Both biological and environmental factors will be investigated, with the student having the opportunity to review all available research and using a multi-disciplinary approach, identify gaps in knowledge and undertake relevant research strands to elucidate causal agents and risk factors. Previous research has looked at individual potential causal agents and the lack of success so far in identifying a causative agent suggests it may be multifactorial.The main strands of this research project will include:- Developing a relevant and novel in vitro system comprising 3D gut enteroid cultures from horses to enable the study of the early host-pathogen interactions following challenge of the in vitro cultures with some of the leading candidate causal agents that may be involved in equine grass sickness. - Investigating the use of saliva as a non-invasive test in horses to detect host immune responses to a range of candidate antigens from potential causal agents that may play a role in inducing equine grass sickness. - Samples for the project will be collected in longitudinal studies in selected areas where grass sickness has been prevalent in recent years.- Establishment of a national biobank and database, including questionnaire development, collaborating with vets, horse owners and researchers, to collect biological and environmental samples from EGS cases and controls.