The Face Says It All: Pain Assessment in Animals Using Facial Expressions

A presentation at a stall on the European Researchers’ Night will focus on recognising pain using facial expressions.

The last decade has seen the development of pain assessment using facial expressions in different animal species, such as mice, rats, rabbits, skunks, cats, pigs, horses, sheep and cattle. The assessment is simple and does not take much time, and the techniques can be acquired quickly even by people with no prior veterinary education.

Building an awareness that animals feel pain just like people should start as soon as possible in children, in secondary school education at the latest. With this project, Veterinary Faculty researchers aim to “open the eyes” of children and teach them to recognise signs of pain in animal species for which pain assessment scales exist, using facial expressions.

Through pictures and videos, they will show European Researchers’ Night visitors how to recognise pain in animals using facial expressions. They will use quizzes to test the success of the presentations, encouraging visitors of the stall to think critically and transfer the acquired knowledge to their home environments.

Coordinator: Alenka Seliškar, PhD, Veterinary Faculty