Assessing the affective component of pain, and the efficacy of pain control, using conditioned place aversion in calves.

Assessing the affective component of pain, and the efficacy of pain control, using conditioned place aversion in calves. Biol Lett. 2019 Oct 31;15(10):20190642 Authors: Ede T, von Keyserlingk MAG, Weary DM Abstract Pain in animals is typically assessed using reflexive and physiological responses. These measures allow inferences regarding nociception but provide little basis for conclusions about the affective component of pain (i.e. how negatively the experience is perceived). Calves routinely undergo painful procedures on commercial farms, including hot-iron disbudding, providing a convenient model to study pain in animals. The aim of this study was to investigate the affective component of post-procedural pain due to hot-iron disbudding, using conditioned place aversion. Calves (n = 31) were subjected to two procedures (one bud at a time): one without post-procedural pain control and the other with the use of a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (either meloxicam (n = 16) or ketoprofen (n = 15)). All procedures included the use of local anaesthesia (lidocaine). Place conditioning was tested 2 days after the last treatment by allowing calves to freely roam between the pens where they had previously been disbudded. Calves spent more time, and lay down more frequently, in the pen where they received meloxicam compared with the pen where they only received a local block. Surprisingly, calves avoided the pen where they received ketopro...
Source: Biology Letters - Category: Biology Authors: Tags: Biol Lett Source Type: research