Advancement in Equine Pain Management

Despite recent improvements in the perception of equine pain and welfare, the recognition and treatment of pain in horses still lag behind their small animal counterpart. While most clinicians strongly advocate preventing and alleviating pain, it is still debated whether a little discomfort may reduce the risk that the animal will overuse an injured body part, especially in prey animals like horses. In addition, the reluctance to use systemic full mu-opioid receptor agonists still exists due to the concern that opioids may cause excitation, the fear that opioid receptor agonists may decrease gastrointestinal motility, and the conflicting data on the analgesic efficacy of full mu opioids in horses with naturally occurring diseases. Therefore, this special issue will revolve around recent advancements in equine pain understanding, recognition and management. Authors are encouraged to submit papers in the areas of recognizing, preventing, modulating, and managing acute and chronic pain in horses. We also encourage submissions focusing on pain mechanisms, such as mechanistic studies ex vivo or preliminary work involving tissues or biological samples from well-phenotyped horses. Finally, we note significant advancements in the development of therapeutic platforms, viral transfection modalities, or targeted neurotoxins that have been documented on other species and suggest relevance to the equine patient.

This Research Topic aims to bring together a collection of high-quality research and review papers that individually and collectively summarize the status of the art of pain mechanics, recognition, and management in horses.

We welcome the submission of manuscripts including, but not limited to, the following topics:
- The analysis of the pathophysiology of pain relevant to the horse, both in vivo and ex vivo.
- The refinement and/or validation of clinical metrology indices and quantitative sensory testing for assessing pain in horses.
- Identification of behavioral and physiological biomarkers associated with acute or chronic painful conditions.
- Identification of pain markers in tissues and biological samples from well-phenotyped horses.
- New analgesic and/or anesthetic models (including loco-regional techniques) implemented to control pain associated with invasive procedures.
- Novel practices to modulate pain associated with chronic or debilitating diseases.