Infrared Thermography as a Tool for Assessing Animal Welfare and Its Usefulness in Veterinary Research

<p><span style=color: rgba(23 43 77 1)>This Special Issue </span><em style=color: rgba(23 43 77 1)>Infrared Thermography as a Tool for Assessing Animal Welfare and its Usefulness in Veterinary Research</em><span style=color: rgba(23 43 77 1)> presents leading research on the application of infrared thermography (IRT) and thermal imaging to analyze temperature variations in domestic and wild animals encompassing both poikilothermic and homeothermic species. These variations reflect physiological responses to environmental stressors including cold heat pain fear hunger anxiety and boredom as well as natural processes such as illness growth aging weight fluctuations exercise courtship mating imprinting and stages like estrus pregnancy parturition and lactation. This reprint provides valuable insights into how IRT systems by detecting infrared radiation emitted from the body efficiently assess superficial microcirculatory changes that influence thermal patterns. This innovative technique demonstrates significant potential in veterinary clinical research for identifying inflammatory processes wounds neoplasms pain emotions and neuropathies. Furthermore IRT has established itself as a valuable diagnostic tool in veterinary medicine with applications in oncology orthopedics reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation. IRT's versatility extends beyond individual diagnostics and is used to evaluate the effects of climate change heat stress and the behavioral and physiological responses of farm companion laboratory and wild animals to various internal and external factors. This solidifies its importance as an indispensable tool in veterinary science.</span></p>