Dataset Information

Behavior of Piglets in an Observation Arena before and after Surgical Castration with Local Anesthesia.

ABSTRACT: Surgical castration of piglets is generally recognized as a painful procedure, but there is currently no gold standard for the assessment of pain behavior in piglets. However, pain assessment is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of local anesthetics. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of four local anesthetics in terms of pain relief during and after surgical castration in three sequential study parts. To do so, we filmed 178 piglets before the applied procedures, after injection of the local anesthetic, and up to 24 h after castration (five observation times in total) in an observation arena and compared their behavior before and after castration and between treatments and control groups. The results showed significant differences in the behavior of the piglets before and after castration and between the sham-castrated control group and the control group castrated without anesthesia. The different local anesthesia treatment groups showed diverging differences to the control groups. The most frequently shown pain-associated behaviors of the piglets were changes in tail position and hunched back posture. We observed a reduction but no complete elimination of the expressed pain-associated behaviors after local anesthesia. Several behavioral changes-such as changes in tail position, hunched back posture or tail wagging-persisted until the day after castration. Owing to the limited duration of the effects of the local anesthetics, local anesthesia did not influence long-term pain.

SUBMITTER: Miller R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9913414 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Behavior of Piglets in an Observation Arena before and after Surgical Castration with Local Anesthesia.

Miller Regina R Grott Andrea A Patzkéwitsch Dorian D Döring Dorothea D Abendschön Nora N Deffner Pauline P Reiser Judith J Ritzmann Mathias M Saller Anna M AM Schmidt Paul P Senf Steffanie S Werner Julia J Baumgartner Christine C Zöls Susanne S Erhard Michael M Bergmann Shana S

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI 20230202 3

Surgical castration of piglets is generally recognized as a painful procedure, but there is currently no gold standard for the assessment of pain behavior in piglets. However, pain assessment is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of local anesthetics. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of four local anesthetics in terms of pain relief during and after surgical castration in three sequential study parts. To do so, we filmed 178 piglets before the applied procedures, after injecti ...[more]

PMID: 36766418

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Project description:Surgical castration of male piglets without analgesia is a painful procedure. This prospective, randomized and double-blinded study aimed to evaluate the analgesic effects of four different local anesthetics for piglet castration during the first week of life. In total, 54 piglets aged 3 to 7 days were distributed into 6 treatment groups: handling (H); castration without pain relief (sodium chloride, NaCl); and castration with a local anesthetic: 4% procaine (P), 2% lidocaine (L), 0.5% bupivacaine (B) or 20 mg/ml mepivacaine (M). By excluding stress and fear as disruptive factors via a minimum anesthesia model, all piglets received individual minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) isoflurane anesthesia. Twenty minutes before castration, all treatment groups except group H received one injection per testis. Then, 0.5 ml of a local anesthetic or NaCl was injected intratesticularly (i.t.), and 0.5 ml was administered subscrotally. Acute physiological responses to noxious stimuli at injection and castration were evaluated by measuring blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine and chromogranin A (CgA); limb movements were quantified. The results confirm that castration without analgesia is highly painful. Surgical castration without pain relief revealed significant changes in mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and HR. Local anesthetic administration significantly reduced changes in BP and HR associated with castration. Piglets receiving a preoperative local anesthetic exhibited the fewest limb movements during castration, while the NaCl group exhibited the most. Injection itself was not associated with significant changes in MAP or HR. However, many piglets exhibited limb movements during injection, indicating that the injection itself causes nociceptive pain. No significant differences were found between groups regarding parameters of plasma cortisol, catecholamines and CgA. In conclusion, all four local anesthetics administered are highly effective at reducing signs of nociception during castration under light isoflurane anesthesia. However, injection of a local anesthetic seems to be painful.

Project description:ImportanceSubstantial preclinical evidence suggests that the developing brain is susceptible to injury from anesthetic drugs. Findings from clinical studies of the neurotoxic effects of anesthesia are mixed, but these effects can be influenced by unmeasured confounding from biological and environmental risk and protective factors on child development.ObjectiveTo examine the association between surgical procedures that require general anesthesia before primary school entry and child development in biological siblings.Design, setting, and participantsThis retrospective sibling-matched cohort study included sibling pairs aged 5 to 6 years with the same birth mother who had Early Development Instrument (EDI) data completed. The EDI is a population-based measure of child development that assesses children's readiness to learn in 5 major domains (physical health and well-being, social knowledge and competence, emotional health and maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills and general knowledge). All eligible children in public and Catholic schools in Ontario, Canada, from 2004 through 2012 were included. Data were analyzed from December 13, 2017, through July 27, 2018.ExposuresSurgical procedures that require general anesthesia from the date of birth to EDI completion.Main outcomes and measuresEarly developmental vulnerability, defined as any major domain of the EDI in the lowest 10th percentile of the Ontario population.ResultsOf the 187 226 eligible children for whom the EDI was completed, a total of 10 897 sibling pairs (21 794 children; 53.8% female; mean [SD] age, 5.7 [0.3] years) were subsequently identified, including 2346 with only 1 child exposed to surgery. No significant differences were found between exposed and unexposed children in early developmental vulnerability (697 of 3080 [22.6%] vs 3739 of 18 714 [20.0%]; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.03; 95% CI, 0.98-1.14; P = .58) or for each of the 5 major EDI domains (aOR for language and cognitive development, 0.96 [95% CI, 0.80-1.14]; aOR for physical health and well-being, 1.09 [95% CI, 0.96-1.24]; aOR for social knowledge and competence, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.84-1.14]; aOR for emotional health and maturity, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.84-1.14]; and aOR for communication skills and general knowledge, 0.90 [95% CI, 0.77-1.05]), after adjusting for confounding factors (age at EDI completion, sex, mother's age at birth, and eldest sibling status).Conclusions and relevanceIn this provincial cohort study, children who had surgical procedures that require general anesthesia before primary school entry were not found to be at increased risk of adverse child development outcomes compared with their biological siblings who did not have surgery. These findings further support that anesthesia exposure in early childhood is not associated with detectable adverse child development outcomes.

Project description:Environmental enrichment (EE) is widely used in the life sciences to study effects of environment on the brain. In pigs, despite lack of EE being a key welfare issue there is little understanding of brain effects of EE in pigs. This project aimed to study the effects of exposure to an EE arena on piglet behaviours and on brain gene expression levels with a focus on IGF-1 and related genes. Eight litters of large white×landrace×Hampshire piglets were farrowed and raised in a free farrowing system (PigSAFE). At 42days of age, 6pigletsperlitter were given access to an enriched arena with plentiful peat, straw and space, (in groups of 4 made up of stable pairs) for 15min per day on 5 consecutive days to allow them to habituate to the apparatus. Piglet behaviours were recorded in the arena for 15min periods on 3 consecutive days. On the final day only one pair of test piglets per litter was given access to the arena. Brain tissue was collected within 45min of the test from piglets exposed to the arena on the day and their non-exposed littermate controls. RNA was extracted from the frontal cortex and QRT-PCR for selected genes run on a Stratgene MX3005P. In both the home pen and the EE arena litters spent the largest proportion of time engaging in foraging behaviour which was significantly increased in the enriched arena (t7=5.35, df=6, p=0.001). There were decreases in non-running play (t7=4.82, p=0.002) and inactivity (t7=4.6, p=0.002) in the arena. A significant fold change increase (FC=1.07, t=4.42, p=0.002) was observed in IGF-1 gene expression in the frontal cortex of piglets exposed to the enriched arena compared to those not exposed on the day of culling. No change in expression was observed in CSF1, the IGF-1 receptor gene nor in any of the binding proteins tested (IGFBP1-6). There was a weak tendency for increased expression of the neurotrophic factor BDNF1 (fold change: 1.03; t7=1.54, p=0.1). We believe this work is the first to explore effects of EE on pig brain physiology and development, and also points to a potential role for IGF-1 in brain effects of EE.

Dataset Information

Behavior of Piglets in an Observation Arena before and after Surgical Castration with Local Anesthesia.

Publications

Behavior of Piglets in an Observation Arena before and after Surgical Castration with Local Anesthesia.

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