And the major SM forum which brought together many of the global researchers on SM in cavaliers. Heard about 10 papers and sat in on the neuro/researcher roundtable closed-door session where they adopted Clare Rusbridge's MRI letter grading scale for cavaliers as well as her system for scoring pain displayed from SM.
Much of enormous interest, much that was distressing (more confirmation of the high incidence across the breed), a general concensus that this is a very, very serious problem for the breed, and some promise too -- Dutch breeders working to MRI for clear dogs and breeding for clear dogs have already considerably increased the number of clears coming up in scans. Mathematical predictions are that once you start following a careful breeding programme with clear or mostly clear dogs you can significantly reduce incidence and severity within 5 generations. There is work underway to get some funding in the UK for a similar project perhaps.
Also the genome research has isolated down the likely location of implicated genes to 6 chromosomes; still lots of work to be done but basically there is promise that the esponsible genes will be located (though a genetic test from that info is much harder to create).
I will spend tomorrow trying to get some shape on my notes and post them here and to the SM site and the CKCS-SM-Support list. Very tired after a long day of consecutive research papers, Q&A then the researche round table.
Overall it was fantastic to listen to all these deeply intelligent people that are dedicated to understanding this condition better and finding ways of treating it.
Much of enormous interest, much that was distressing (more confirmation of the high incidence across the breed), a general concensus that this is a very, very serious problem for the breed, and some promise too -- Dutch breeders working to MRI for clear dogs and breeding for clear dogs have already considerably increased the number of clears coming up in scans. Mathematical predictions are that once you start following a careful breeding programme with clear or mostly clear dogs you can significantly reduce incidence and severity within 5 generations. There is work underway to get some funding in the UK for a similar project perhaps.
Also the genome research has isolated down the likely location of implicated genes to 6 chromosomes; still lots of work to be done but basically there is promise that the esponsible genes will be located (though a genetic test from that info is much harder to create).
I will spend tomorrow trying to get some shape on my notes and post them here and to the SM site and the CKCS-SM-Support list. Very tired after a long day of consecutive research papers, Q&A then the researche round table.
Overall it was fantastic to listen to all these deeply intelligent people that are dedicated to understanding this condition better and finding ways of treating it.