Introduction to the SEED Science special issue Manczak, Erika M.; Watamura, Sarah E.
Developmental psychobiology,
November 2022, 2022-11-00, 20221101, Volume:
64, Issue:
7
Journal Article
•Pigs routinely encounter challenging situations in commercial production systems.•The adaptability of pigs to routine stressors has implications for animal welfare.•Stress adaptability can be shaped ...by housing, human and social experiences early in life.•Some early experiences have a more enduring effect on stress adaptability than others.•Early experiences are important to the short and sometimes longer-term welfare of pigs.
Pigs in production systems are routinely exposed to challenging situations including abrupt weaning, painful husbandry procedures, intense contact with stockpeople, and exposure to novel social and physical environments. The resilience of pigs to these stressors has implications for animal welfare and productivity and can be affected by early life experiences. In rodents and primates, early experiences with stressors that the animal can adequately cope with confers future stress adaptability, leading to less abnormal behaviour, lower behavioural and physiological responses to stressors, and faster recovery after stress exposure. Early experiences that can affect the ability of pigs to overcome challenge include interactions with the dam, conspecifics, humans, and the overall complexity of the environment. Farrowing crates limit the sow’s ability to show maternal behaviour towards piglets, and negatively affect piglet social behaviour during lactation, with less play and more manipulation of pen mates in crates than in large pens. Rearing in pens has been proposed to improve the ability of pigs to cope with routine stressors, but the evidence for this is conflicting. The early housing environment can affect general fearfulness and fear of humans, and surprisingly, most studies have shown fear responses to be greater in pigs reared pens than in crates. Given the potential for fear to affect animal welfare and productivity, more detailed research on early housing effects is needed. While there is limited evidence that early housing influences fear in the longer term, human contact early in life appears to have a more profound and sustained effect, with regular positive human interaction early in life having an enduring effect on reducing pigs’ fear of humans. The practicality of positive human-pig interaction in a commercial environment needs to be examined further, but only a small amount of positive human contact early in life can improve the resilience of pigs to routine husbandry stressors. Early social experience with non-littermates reduces stress at weaning and mixing, while early weaning before 3–4 weeks of age increases abnormal behaviours. Environmental enrichment, such as foraging substrates and increased floor space, reduces abnormal behaviour in piglets, but housing in an enriched environment early in life and subsequently in a non-enriched environment can increase abnormal behaviour if these environments are dramatically different. Although the later environment can modify the influence of the early environment, overall, early life experiences can be important in shaping how pigs cope with stress in both an immediate and longer-term capacity.
Exposure to adversity in childhood is associated with elevations in numerous physical and mental health outcomes across the life course. The biological embedding of early experience during periods of ...developmental plasticity is one pathway that contributes to these associations. Dimensional models specify mechanistic pathways linking different dimensions of adversity to health and well-being outcomes later in life. While findings from existing studies testing these dimensions have provided promising preliminary support for these models, less agreement exists about how to measure the experiences that comprise each dimension. Here, we review existing approaches to measuring two dimensions of adversity: threat and deprivation. We recommend specific measures for measuring these constructs and, when possible, document when the same measure can be used by different reporters and across the lifespan to maximize the utility with which these recommendations can be applied. Through this approach, we hope to stimulate progress in understanding how particular dimensions of early environmental experience contribute to lifelong health.
Methods Consecutive patients who underwent TAVI with SYMETIS Acurate neoTM TF valve at Humanitas Research Hospital (Rozzano, Milan, Italy) and at San Raffaele Scientific Institute (Milan, Italy) were ...included in a prospective registry between July 2015 and June 2017. Conclusion The preliminary findings of this prospective registry indicate that the new-generation SYMETIS Acurate neoTM TF valve is a safe and effective in routine clinical practice, with a low rate of procedural complications and favorable early clinical outcomes.
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