A severe, incurable neurologic disorder thought to affect primarily Arabians--cerebellar abiotrophy (CA)--might be able to jump the "breed barrier" and affect other types of horses, according to a University of California, Davis, research team. The genetic disease--caused by a mutation on a certain segment of DNA--other breeds of horses (mostly those with Arabians in their lineage) could be at risk for carrying the CA mutation.
Cerebellar abiotrophy is caused by the loss of a specific type of neuron in the cerebellum (the part of the brain that controls a horse's sensory perception, coordination, and motor control). As a result, affected foals suffer from head tremors and a lack of equilibrium, among other neurologic deficits. Due to the absence of an effective treatment approach the more severely affected foals are routinely euthanized early in life because of the risk they would pose to themselves and others as adults.
Cecilia Penedo, PhD, of the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory (VGL), along with Leah Brault, PhD, who worked on the continuing CA project at UC Davis during her doctoral studies, identified a genetic mutation associated with CA in 2010. But they began to wonder if the Arabian's role in the development of many other breeds could mean that these breeds could have inherited the CA mutation.
Although only from speculation, it’s not hard to derive the possibility that the growing need for more and more resources by the insatiable species called humans are to blame. We’re creating more and more ways to create more and more things. Or it can be that we’re creating more and more ways to reproduce more and more things at an accelerated rate. It can be attributed to the pollution, the type of food these animals consume, or just about anything. As the ones who rule the majority of the troposphere, we should take full responsibility of what happens around us as well. That includes taking care of the animals that we’ve ousted from their habitat, too.
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