Keyword: Brain integration

EFSA Opinion - Welfare of horses during killing for purposes other than slaughter

EFSA Panel on Animal Health and Welfare

Published in 2025

New EFSA Opinion on the welfare of horses during killing for purposes other than human consumption, whether indivudally or on a large scale. The Opinion details three phases: pre-stunning, stunning and bleeding. It identifies potential hazards and describes stunning and killing methods (captive bolt, firearm, lethal injection). Potential risks, preventive measures and animal welfare measurement criteria are described, along with practices deemed unacceptable on welfare.

Document Types: Opinions

Animal categories: Equines

Keywords:Animal-based measurement, Anxiety, Consciousness, Pain, Brain integration, Fear, Stress

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EFSA Opinion - Welfare of horses at slaughter

EFSA Panel on Animal Health and Welfare

Published in 2025

New EFSA opinion on the welfare of horses at slaughter for human consumption. The opinion details three phases: pre-stunning, stunning and bleeding. It identifies potential hazards and describes stunning and killing methods (captive bolt, firearm, lethal injection), and proposes measures to assess animal welfare consequences. Practices deemed unacceptable on welfare grounds are also listed.

Document Types: Opinions

Animal categories: Equines

Keywords:Animal-based measurement, Anxiety, Consciousness, Pain, Brain integration, Fear, Stress

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Putative Nociceptive Responses in a Decapod Crustacean: The Shore Crab (Carcinus maenas)

Kasiouras, E.; Hubbard, P.C.; Gräns, A.; Sneddon, L.U.

Published in 2024

Study of nociceptors in Shore Crabs using electrophysiological recordings. The results provide evidence of distinct responses to mechanical and chemical stimuli, confirming the presence of nociceptors in the areas tested.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories:Arthropods

Key words:Pain, Brain integration

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Abattage des bovins : contrôle de l’état de conscience et fluidité industrielle

Jourdan Félix

Published in 2024

Article exploring the tensions between the requirement in EC Regulation 1099/2009 to monitor the state of consciousness of cattle during slaughter, and the fluidity of the industrial process in abattoirs. It highlights the difficulties of implementation, particularly for ritual slaughter, and the strategies developed to reconcile regulatory requirements and productivity.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Bovines

Keywords:Animal-based measurement, Animal trade, Consciousness, Pain, Euthanasia, Brain integration, Stress

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Anatomical and functional basis of facial expressions and their relationship with emotions in horses

Barbara Zimmermann, Alejandra Nelly Cristina Castro, Pamela Anahí Lendez, Mariano Carrica Illia, María Paula Carrica Illia, Alfredo Raúl Teyseyre, Juan Manuel Toloza, Marcelo Daniel Ghezzi, Daniel Mota-Rojas

Published in 2024

Scientific review exploring the influence of environmental stimuli on measurable behaviors in horses, focusing on facial expressions as indicators of emotion. It highlights the importance of understanding these expressions when assessing emotional states and welfare in horses, drawing on studies conducted in other mammals.

Document Types: Scientific review

Animal categories: Equines

Keywords:Animal-based measurement, Brain integration, Fear, Human-animal relationship

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Effects of electrical and percussive stunning on neural, ventilatory and cardiac responses of rainbow trout

Jeroen Brijs, Per Hjelmstedt, Erika Sundell, Charlotte Berg, Erik Sandblom, Albin Gräns

Published in 2025

Study evaluating the effectiveness of dry and percussive electrical stunning for the ethical slaughter of rainbow trout. The results indicate that percussivestunning is more effective, while dry electrical stunning requires further research before it can be validated as a humane slaughter method.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Fish

Keywords:Animal-based measurement, Consciousness, Pain, Euthanasia, Brain integration

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Towards the humane slaughter of decapod crustaceans: identifying the most effective indicators of insensibility following electrical stunning

Douglas M. Neil, Endre Putyora, Amaya Albalat

Published in 2024

Scientific paper showing that electrical stunning causes nerve activity to cease in two crustacean species at both central and peripheral levels. However, cardiac activity continues for over an hour after stunning. Heart rate is not therefore a reliable indicator of the sensitivity of crustaceans or of the effectiveness of stunning.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories:Arthropods

Keywords:Animal-based measurement, Consciousness, Pain, Euthanasia, Brain integration

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La douleur et la souffrance des poissons sont-elles suffisamment considérées en aquaculture et pêche ?

Marie-Laure Bégout

Published in 2024

Article following on from the FRCAW report on the slaughter of farmed fish. Ifremer reviews the capacity of fish to feel pain, their legal status, and appropriate slaughter methods. Making pre-slaughter stunning compulsory in France would require investment and an overhaul of the way businesses organize their work, but other countries such as Norway have already done so.

Document types: Technical Paper

Animal categories: Fish

Keywords:Animal-based measurement, Brain integration, Euthanasia, Experimentation, Pain, Maltreatment, Stress, Societal issues

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Volitional activation of remote place representations with a hippocampal brain-machine interface

Chongxi Lai, Shinsuke Tanaka, Timothy D. Harris, Albert K. Lee

Published in 2023

Scientific article on the development of a brain-machine interface to study rats' abilities to voluntarily navigate and direct objects in a virtual reality arena, solely by activating and sustaining appropriate hippocampal representations of remote locations.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Rodents

Keywords:Animal adaptation to environment, Animal-based measurement, Learning, Consciousness, Brain integration, Living environment, Modeling

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Towards the use of on-farm slaughterhouse

Thierry Astruc, E.M. Claudia Terlouw

Published in 2023

Scientific review of the different stages of slaughtering and their possible impacts on animal stress, welfare and meat quality. It reviews the regulations and technological advances that have led to the development of mobile slaughter units, presents a non-exhaustive list of mobile slaughter units currently in use, and sets out the advantages and disadvantages of these mobile units.

Document Types: Scientific review

Animal categories: Bovines, Caprines, Equines, Ovines, Porcines, Poultry

Keywords:Animal adaptation to environment, Consciousness, Pain, Societal issues, Brain integration, Carcass quality, Stress, Farming system

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