Page 9 - act-annual-review-2022-2023

 

 

 

 

 

Page 9 - act-annual-review-2022-2023
P. 9

OUR IMPACT ON VETERINARY RESEARCH





            The ACT funds pioneering research to               research groups focusing on tumour biology,   64 dogs completed the randomised, double-
            improve the health and care of animals.           epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases are       blinded, placebo controlled behavioural trial,
            Recent projects we have funded include            currently making use of the facility. In addition,   comparing the effects of two behavioural
            the Companion Animal Brain Bank (CABB)            the CABB has supported important collaborative    interventions to a control group of seizures and
            which has provided a significant resource         research looking at the impact of injury and      anxiety in dogs with epilepsy. Bella, Dairylea and
            for neurology research and an epilepsy            birth on the brain of animals and new-born        Dylan (pictured) are just some of the epileptic
            study, funding a PhD student to investigate       human babies.                                     patients helping Sarah with this research. There
            whether behavioural interventions can             Alternative treatments for epilepsy               has been resoundingly positive feedback from
            reduce seizure frequency.                                                                           owners and a large quantity of high-quality data
                                                              The ACT funded Sarah Hobbs a Research             to analyse. If successful, the results from this trial
            Companion Animal Brain Bank                       Assistant in the Canine Epilepsy Team, to         will lead to a new management tool for epilepsy

            The CABB collects and stores samples              undertake her PhD to investigate the influence of   treatment and most importantly will help those
            of brain tissue and other biological              behavioural interventions on the seizure frequency   dogs with drug-resistant epilepsy and those that
            specimens for research and educational            and emotional wellbeing of dogs with drug-        suffer from the side effects of anti-seizure drugs.
            purposes. The bank is available to a              resistant epilepsy.
            wide range of researchers looking into            Epilepsy is the most common chronic neurological   “I was first interested in taking part in the epilepsy
            neurological conditions which affect animals      disease in dogs and has detrimental effects upon   study because we have battled with Bella’s
            and humans.                                       the quality of life of both affected dogs and their   epilepsy for some time now. It’s a cruel disease
            Over the last 30 years, significant advances      owners. Dogs with epilepsy experience recurrent   so if we could take part in some research to
                                                                                                                potentially help other dogs with epilepsy and
            in neurological disease research have             seizures, which are most commonly managed         contribute to scientific research to better manage
            resulted from examining brain tissue.             by anti-seizure drugs with the aim of reducing    epilepsy, then I was definitely up for that!”
            However, there has been a shortage                how often and how severely affected dogs have
            of brain tissue available to researchers          seizures. Unfortunately, around a third of these   Feedback received from a trial participant
            globally. The CABB is a significant step          dogs will continue to seizure despite medical
            forward in supporting the advancement of          treatment and some epileptic canine patients
            knowledge and developing treatments for           also suffer from adverse side effects from
            these complex and distressing diseases.           anti-seizure drugs.











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