Reflex impairment in dogs, birds, and turtles

Reflex impairment in animals treated by veterinarians (dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, and livestock) is widely tested as part of a neurological examination to determine the potential presence and location of neurological impairment. The neurological exam consists of tests on mentation, posture and gait, cranial nerves, proprioception, spinal reflexes, and sensory pain perception.  Detailed summaries of these test procedures can be found here and here. In the veterinarian context, results of these neurological exams are generally confined to determination of whether the nervous system is affected in a disease process and to provide an accurate anatomic diagnosis when the nervous system is affected.  Consideration of contributions to disease by neurologic, medical, and orthopedic sources are differentiated into separate testing protocols for the purpose of formulating diagnosis and treatment plans. 

 Clippinger et al. 2007

Vernau et al. 2007

The veterinarian sequence of neurological testing in dogs and cats has been applied to sea turtles.  Results of the study showed that many of the neurological methods for dogs and cats can be adapted for use in sea turtles. The authors concluded that a standardized neurologic examination resulted in an accurate assessment of neurologic function in impaired sea turtles and could help in evaluating effects of rehabilitation efforts and suitability for return to their natural environment. Another study made a detailed assessment of chelonian health that included measuring reflex impairment as part of emergency and critical care. Measured reflex actions included head lift, cloacal or tail touch, eye touch, and nose touch.

Freshwater turtles have been tested for reflex impairment in an effort to evaluate the effects of submergence and increased temperature in bycatch mortality of three species.

Stoot et al. 2013

The RAMP results from reflex impairment testing in fish and invertebrates suggest that the neurological and reflex state of an animal includes the effects of injury and infection when related to fitness outcomes such as recovery, vitality, morbidity, and potential mortality. This inclusion of fitness effects probably results from the fact that the RAMP method is a scoring system that expresses the proportion of whole animal impairment, calculated based on the presence or absence of a suite of reflex actions.  Shifting focus and perspective from individual mechanistic explanations for disease to comprehensive whole animal measures for vitality can help link reflex impairment with fitness outcomes.

Further study and reflection on human and veterinarian medicine approaches to neurological testing can probably inform selection of reflexes to be used in the RAMP approach for reflex testing.  The interaction of medical and RAMP perspectives for quantifying disease states may result in advances towards understanding how nervous system and reflex function can be a comprehensive indicator of disease and vitality states, combining the effects of injury, infection, and nerve impairment.