Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: For years veterinarians have understood that stressful experiences increase disease in lightweight, recently transported and commingled cattle. Increased incidence of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in high-risk cattle has traditionally been attributed to endogenous cortisol, but in fact, increased cortisol is often not measured in cattle presumed to be stressed. While high-risk cattle are often seronegative to common respiratory viruses at receiving, field trials have confirmed they can mount significant humoral response to vaccination at arrival, indicating they are not too immunosuppressed to produce antibodies. However, at-arrival vaccination of high-risk cattle is not reliably associated with improved health over the subsequent 60-90 days. Research indicates that stress actually increases the magnitude of inflammatory responses to infection or other stimuli. Taken together, these findings indicate that high BRD incidence in some high-risk cattle may be more attributable to excessive or prolonged inflammation than to immunosuppression. Recent studies demonstrated that high-risk cattle that nonetheless stay healthy have increased expression of genes related to production of specific pro-resolving mediators (SPM), which bring inflammatory responses to a close. Research is ongoing to determine whether SPM can be induced by certain management practices, genetic selection, or therapeutic or prophylactic interventions, to improve cattle health.
Author: Amelia Woolums
Institution: Mississippi State University
Language: English
Topic: Animal health and immunology
Subfield: Small Animals
Field: Veterinary
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408889575