Page 5 - act-annual-review-2022-2023

A YEAR IN REVIEW
FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE RVC ANIMAL CARE TRUST
It is only when your own body starts
to fail that you appreciate how much
we take for granted about the way
our brains co-ordinate our individual
movements and activities, and how
unconsciously we complete complex
manoeuvres. As a clinician, I have
watched young horses walking across
their paddocks, wobbling precariously,
sometimes falling and struggling to
stand, due to pressure on their spinal
cords. I have grieved with owners as
their canine companions have slowly
lost strength on their hindlimbs,
eventually losing their ability to
stand unaided, due to degenerating
spinal nerves.
So, it gives me great pleasure to thank all
our friends for their generosity in supporting
our companion animal brain bank, through
permission to harvest brain material from
sadly dead companions, as well as funding to
support the processing. This will provide an
established, fully clinically defined resource
for many projects, looking at microscopic
and molecular changes associated with
the different conditions where the brain
loses control.
As a clinical scientist, I have felt particularly fulfilled Real progress is made by each generation of
by the way in which we can investigate the whole veterinary clinicians and scientists passing on our
picture in many of our patients, from behaviour, knowledge to the next, like a baton in a relay race.
through a range of diagnostic imaging techniques This year we have welcomed your further support
to, in some cases, tissue sampling and analysis. for students, towards our widening participation
However, given the complexity of its structure, and initiatives, and towards students facing periods
the essential nature of all brain tissue, sampling of hardship in these challenging times. The rest
of abnormal areas is not very practical. Therefore, of the ACT Team and I have been inspired by
with epilepsy, the RVC Animal Care Trust (ACT) their stories, and I hope that through our new
has been able to support, with your help, important publications we are sharing these stories and their
long-term research focussing on the clinical gratitude with all of you. Please contact us if you
abnormality itself, characterising the nature of feel there are any aspects of our work about which
fits and response to therapy, including the way you would like to hear more.
dietary modifications can significantly decrease the As Chair of the Management Committee, I am
frequency of fits. grateful for our small team that has steered us
Diagnostic imaging is the way we look inside the with your generous support to a successful year
body. It clearly is central to our investigation of in 2023 and look forward to further important
many diseases, once they become established, developments in veterinary diagnosis and
and essential for confirming and eliminating many treatment, and veterinary education, in 2024.
brain abnormalities. It used to be said that painting
the Forth Bridge was a continual process. As soon
as you got to the end, you had to go back to the
other end and start again. I feel equipping our
services with a full range of diagnostic imaging
systems is a similar endeavour. So, this year we
have upgraded the CT scanner in the equine Professor Stephen May
hospital and funded a new image intensifier in Chairman of the RVC Animal Care Trust
the Queen Mother Hospital for Animals.
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