Extensive Sheep and Goat Production: The Role of Novel Technologies towards Sustainability and Animal Welfare

ReviewSheep and goat extensive production systems are very important in the context of global food security and the use of rangelands that have no alternative agricultural use. In such systems, there are enormous challenges to address. These include, for instance, classical production issues, such as nutrition or reproduction, as well as carbon-efficient systems within the climate-change context. An adequate response to these issues is determinant to economic and environmental sustainability. The answers to such problems need to combine efficiently not only the classical production aspects, but also the increasingly important health, welfare, and environmental aspects in an integrated fashion. The purpose of the study was to review the application of technological developments, in addition to remote-sensing in tandem with other state-of-the-art techniques that could be used within the framework of extensive production systems of sheep and goats and their impact on nutrition, production, and ultimately, the welfare of these species. In addition to precision livestock farming (PLF), these include other relevant technologies, namely omics and other areas of relevance in small-ruminant extensive production: heat stress, colostrum intake, passive immunity, newborn survival, biomarkers of metabolic disease diagnosis, and parasite resistance breeding. This work shows the substantial, dynamic nature of the scientific community to contribute to solutions that make extensive production systems of sheep and goats more sustainable, efficient, and aligned with current concerns with the environment and welfareinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tumour necrosis factor - alpha mediated mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction

Background: Tumour necrosis factor - alpha (TNF-α) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that combines a plethora of activities in the early stages of an immune response. TNF-α has gained increasing importance given TNF-α upregulation in multiple brain pathologies like neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, as well as neuroinflammatory disorder like multiple sclerosis (MS).\ud \ud Aim: The aim of this review is to critically analyse neurobiological, immunological and molecular mechanisms through which TNF-α influences the development of cognitive dysfunction.\ud \ud Principal findings/results: The review presents several lines of original research showing that the immunological properties of TNF-α exacerbate inflammatory responses in the central nervous system such as microglial and endothelial activation, lymphocytic and monocytic infiltration and the expression of downstream pro-inflammatory cytokines and apoptotic factors. Depression, schizophrenia, and MS all manifest symptoms of activated immune response along with cognitive dysfunction, with TNF-α overexpression as a central clinical feature common to these disorders. Furthermore, TNF-α acts negatively on neuroplasticity and the molecular mechanisms of memory and learning (i.e., long-term potentiation and long-term depression). TNF-α also exerts influence over the production of neurotrophins (i.e., nerve growth factor and brain-derived neurotrophic factor), neurogenesis, and dendritic branching.\ud \ud Conclusions/significance: This review outlines that TNF-α and its receptors have a substantial yet underappreciated influence on the development and progression of neuropsychiatric symptoms across several disease entities. An improved understanding of these underlying mechanisms may help develop novel therapeutic targets in the form of drugs specifically targeting downstream products of TNF-α activation within the central nervous system