Bovine spastic syndrome: a review

Abstract

Bovine spastic syndrome (BSS) was described for the first time in 1941. The disease occurs in various-maybe even all-cattle breeds and is a chronic-progressive neuromuscular disorder that commonly affects cattle of at least three years of age. Typical clinical signs of the disease are clonic-tonic cramps of the hindlimbs that occur in attacks. Since BSS does not recover, affected animals can only be treated symptomatically by improving welfare conditions and management factors, or with physical therapy or drugs. Although still not irrevocably proven, BSS is assumed to be a hereditary disease. Therefore, affected animals should be excluded from breeding, which negatively affects economics and breeding. Besides epidemiology, clinical signs, aetiopathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment, this review discusses genetic aspects and differences to the similar disease bovine spastic paresis. Furthermore, this review also picks up the discussion on possible parallels between human multiple sclerosis and BSS as a further interesting aspect, which might be of great interest for future research.

Frameshift Variant in Novel Adenosine-A1-Receptor Homolog Associated With Bovine Spastic Syndrome/Late-Onset Bovine Spastic Paresis in Holstein Sires

“…Bovine spastic syndrome (BSS) is a cramp-causing disease in cattle, which is commonly assumed to be a hereditary pathology of the central nervous system (CNS) since its first description in 1941 (Frauchiger and Hofmann, 1941;Goeckmann et al, 2018). Usually one or both hind limbs are affected and show intermediating clonic and tonic spasms.…”

“…Rarely, other regions like back muscles or even the entire body are affected. Kyphosis and weight loss are often seen as ancillary effects (Goeckmann et al, 2018). Seizures can last a few seconds to several minutes and then vanish for a time or quickly reappear.…”

“…Higher incidence is assumed for male cattle with an increasing prevalence of BSS within the last five decades (De Vlamynck et al, 2014;Goeckmann et al, 2016). There are clinical reports of BSS in Holstein and at least five other breeds, but BSS occurrence was expected in all cattle breeds already in the early 1950s (Roberts, 1953;Goeckmann et al, 2018).…”

“…The mode of inheritance remains unclear. Currently, four hypotheses on genetic transmission are discussed, i.e., non-autosomal, autosomal recessive, autosomal dominant, or multigenic; however, all of these have incomplete penetrance (Goeckmann et al, 2018). Recently, a genome-wide association study in the North American Holstein population showed associations of BSS on bovine chromosomes 7 and 9 and therefore support the hypothesis of an autosomal inheritance (Neustaeter et al, 2015).…”

“…Recently, a genome-wide association study in the North American Holstein population showed associations of BSS on bovine chromosomes 7 and 9 and therefore support the hypothesis of an autosomal inheritance (Neustaeter et al, 2015). Estimates of the disease prevalence vary but are usually lower than 5% (Neustaeter et al, 2015;Goeckmann et al, 2016Goeckmann et al, , 2018. An increasing degree of inbreeding might exert a major influence on BSS/late-onset BSP prevalence in the future (Gentile and Testoni, 2006).…”