Analgesia during Parturition in Domestic Animals: Perspectives and Controversies on Its Use

This article analyzes the physiological role of pain during parturition in domestic animals, discusses the controversies surrounding the use of opioids, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and local analgesics as treatments during labor, and presents the advantages and disadvantages for mother and offspring. Labor is a potentially stressful and painful event, due to the contractions that promote expulsion of the fetus. During labor, neurotransmitters such as the prostaglandins contribute to the sensitization of oxytocin receptors in the myometrium and the activation of nociceptive fibers, thus supporting the physiological role of pain. Endogenously, the body secretes opioid peptides that modulate harmful stimuli and, at the same time, can inhibit oxytocin’s action in the myometrium. Treating pain during the different stages of parturition is an option that can help prevent such consequences as tachycardia, changes in breathing patterns, and respiratory acidosis, all of which can harm the wellbeing of offspring. However, studies have found that some analgesics can promote myometrial contractility, increase expulsion time, affect fetal circulation, and alter mother–offspring recognition due to hypnotic effects. Other data, however, indicate that reducing the number of uterine contractions with analgesics increases their potency, thus improving maternal performance. Managing pain during labor requires understanding the tocolytic properties of analgesics and their advantages in preventing the consequences of pain.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Slaughtering of Water Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) with and without Stunning: A Focus on the Neurobiology of Pain, Hyperalgesia, and Sensitization

The slaughter process in livestock is considered a stressor where the transport and handling of animals, as well as the selected stunning and bleeding methods, can cause acute pain, distress, and suffering. In water buffaloes, although stunning is known to be performed before bleeding to induce unconsciousness, no emphasis is made on the nociceptive events during this process. Particularly, current mechanical stunning methods applied to cattle are unsuitable for water buffaloes due to anatomical differences in the skull from other large ruminants. Furthermore, although very high-pressure pneumatic (200–220 psi) may be effective in the frontal position for lighter-weight water buffalos, for heavier animals, it is less likely to be effective. The present review aims: (1) to analyze the anatomical particularities of water buffaloes to discuss the importance of selecting a stunning method suitable for buffaloes, and (2) to revise the potential pain-related consequences, such as hyperalgesia and sensitization, and the signs to assess the stun quality and death to comprehend the relevance of a proper technique according to the species.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Clinical usefulness of infrared thermography to detect sick animals: frequent and current cases

Infrared thermography (IRT) is a tool that has been studied extensively in the experimental medical field as a method for assessing surface thermal responses under various conditions. These may involve local inflammatory processes resulting from surgical procedures, wounds, neoplasms, pathologies, painful events, or stressful states in animals. IRT measures changes in blood flow in surface blood capillaries and the resulting heat radiation. In the clinical field, thermography has been used as a support method for detecting painful conditions. However, some guidelines indicate that it could be applied for assessing and monitoring animals in rehabilitation to quantify objectively possible improvements in their quality of life. Similarly, IRT makes it possible to assess the degree of circulation in dermal tissue, suggesting that it could be used to determine the degree of damage in traumatized tissue in cases of thromboembolic diseases and burns. This would be useful to distinguish between damaged and healthy tissue and thus determine the optimal therapy for burn patients. This review aims to analyze scientific evidence on the clinical applications of IRT for detecting diseases and assessing painful conditions. A literature search on different databases was performed to recover articles related to the application of IRT as a complementary diagnostic tool, and its potential for assisting in rehabilitation, monitoring wounds, and evaluating body temperature in domestic animals

Assessment of Pain and Inflammation in Domestic Animals Using Infrared Thermography: A Narrative Review

Publication history: Accepted - 20 June 22023; Published - 22 June 2023.Pain assessment in domestic animals has gained importance in recent years due to the recognition of the physiological, behavioral, and endocrine consequences of acute pain on animal production, welfare, and animal model validity. Current approaches to identifying acute pain mainly rely on behavioral-based scales, quantifying pain-related biomarkers, and the use of devices monitoring sympathetic activity. Infrared thermography is an alternative that could be used to correlate the changes in the superficial temperature with other tools and thus be an additional or alternate acute pain assessment marker. Moreover, its non-invasiveness and the objective nature of its readout make it potentially very valuable. However, at the current time, it is not in widespread use as an assessment strategy. The present review discusses scientific evidence for infrared thermography as a tool to evaluate pain, limiting its use to monitor acute pain in pathological processes and invasive procedures, as well as its use for perioperative monitoring in domestic animals.This research received no external fundin

Vitality in Newborn Farm Animals: Adverse Factors, Physiological Responses, Pharmacological Therapies, and Physical Methods to Increase Neonate Vigor

Publication history: Accepted - 29 April 2023; Published - 4 may 2023.Vitality is the vigor newborn animals exhibit during the first hours of life. It can be assessed by a numerical score, in which variables, such as heart rate, respiratory rate, mucous membranes’ coloration, time the offspring took to stand up, and meconium staining, are monitored. Vitality can be affected by several factors, and therapies are used to increase it. This manuscript aims to review and analyze pharmacological and physical therapies used to increase vitality in newborn farm animals, as well as to understand the factors affecting this vitality, such as hypoxia, depletion of glycogen, birth weight, dystocia, neurodevelopment, hypothermia, and finally, the physiological mechanism to achieve thermostability. It has been concluded that assessing vitality immediately after birth is essential to determine the newborn’s health and identify those that need medical intervention to minimize the deleterious effect of intrapartum asphyxia. Vitality assessment should be conducted by trained personnel and adequate equipment. Evaluating vitality could reduce long-term neonatal morbidity and mortality in domestic animals, even if it is sometimes difficult with the current organization of some farms. This review highlights the importance of increasing the number of stock people during the expected days of parturitions to reduce long-term neonatal morbidity and mortality, and thus, improve the farm’s performance.This research received no external funding

Thermal Imaging to Assess the Health Status in Wildlife Animals under Human Care: Limitations and Perspectives

Ensuring the welfare of wildlife under human care requires tools to monitor their health and well-being. Infrared thermography is a non-invasive technique for assessing thermal states that measure the radiation emitted from the skin in distinct anatomical areas, known as thermal windows—anatomical regions with abundant capillaries and arteriovenous anastomosis that facilitate heat exchange with the environment. However, thermal windows for wildlife species have not yet been established due to the different characteristics of their skin, coats, fur, or coloring. This review discusses published information on the usefulness of the ocular, nasal, thoracic, abdominal, and podal anatomical regions as thermal windows for evaluating these animals’ thermal responses and health status and monitoring habitat design. Another aspect that must be considered for wildlife under human care is the limitations of distinct species due to differences between animals and critical factors. Future studies should focus on establishing a precise application for each thermal window according to the specific characteristics of distinct animal species

Strategies for Hypothermia Compensation in Altricial and Precocial Newborn Mammals and Their Monitoring by Infrared Thermography

Publication history: Accepted - 18 May 2022; Published - 23 May 2022.Thermoregulation in newborn mammals is an essential species-specific mechanism of the nervous system that contributes to their survival during the first hours and days of their life. When exposed to cold weather, which is a risk factor associated with mortality in neonates, pathways such as the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA) are activated to achieve temperature control, increasing the circulating levels of catecholamine and cortisol. Consequently, alterations in blood circulation and mechanisms to produce or to retain heat (e.g., vasoconstriction, piloerection, shivering, brown adipocyte tissue activation, and huddling) begin to prevent hypothermia. This study aimed to discuss the mechanisms of thermoregulation in newborn domestic mammals, highlighting the differences between altricial and precocial species. The processes that employ brown adipocyte tissue, shivering, thermoregulatory behaviors, and dermal vasomotor control will be analyzed to understand the physiology and the importance of implementing techniques to promote thermoregulation and survival in the critical post-birth period of mammals. Also, infrared thermography as a helpful method to perform thermal measurements without animal interactions does not affect these parameters.Non

Ellas por ellos

La equidad de género es un asunto que nos involucra a todas y todos, pues los efectos de las relaciones de desigualdad, que inciden en la sana evolución de las mujeres, alcanzan también a los hombres, cuya masculinidad, construida bajo los cánones de una cultura patriarcal, les ha vetado el acceso a las emociones y el goce de placeres asignados en exclusiva al mundo de lo privado, al femenino. El Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación ha convocado a una pléyade de voces masculinas para que incursionen en el mundo femenino con este libro inspirado en la edición española Ellas. Catorce hombres dan la cara… Dieciséis hombres aceptaron el reto emocional, intelectual y profesional de aportar su visión de Ellas –nombradas así, genéricamente, sin más calificativos–, con la única premisa de escribir a partir de aquello que despierte en su imaginario masculino el simple hecho de pronunciar ese vocablo. … Ellas son aquí mujeres de carne y hueso, actrices, modelos, futbolistas, vendedoras, activistas, amantes y políticas, musas y ejemplos de vida, mundos interpretados desde lo que se sabe y lo que se intuye, acciones y pasiones estocadas indefectiblemente por la inspección masculina, la visión de género, el machismo y la misoginia, miradas injustas que revelan, también, el mundo de Ellos. … Ellas... por ellos es la oportunidad de mirar el imaginario de los Otros. Es atreverse a correr la cortina y aprender de la desnudez de las almas y conciencias masculinas. Es abrazar la frescura de un despertar de los hombres a una nueva era de comprensión y tolerancia, de respeto a lo diferente, de inclusión e integralidad. Valorar lo aquí expuesto por Ellos será para Ellas, definitivamente, un aliento para seguir construyendo una sociedad en igualdad, sin discriminación ni violencia

Semiótica, la pasión del conocimiento. Interpretación e interacciones de la cultura.

El documento aquí expuesto está inspirado por diversas voces y construido por varias manos. Así que sus páginas transitan entre la polisemia y la polifonía, que emergen con la lectura de las interpretaciones semióticas que aquí se encuentran. Cada uno de los artículos, seleccionados por un grupo de especialistas que colaboraron de manera generosa con esta actualización, recoge la experiencia y el conocimiento de los autores que trabajan en esta disciplina; a la vez, constituye una aporte sólido y valioso para quienes están interesados en conocer los avances alcanzados por la semiótica en Colombia, un país donde la Asociación de Estudios en Semiótica se esfuerza de manera permanente por la consolidación de estos estudios

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data