New Therapeutic Horizons for Improving Health and Welfare in Animals

Animal welfare is increasingly recognized as a core dimension of veterinary medicine, extending beyond the absence of disease to encompass the management of pain, stress, and other welfare-related conditions. Welfare-related conditions are defined as clinical or behavioral states that compromise an animal’s ability to experience physical comfort, emotional stability, or species-typical behaviors. These include:

- Chronic pain, encompassing persistent nociceptive or neuropathic pain that reduces mobility, appetite, social interaction, and overall quality of life.
- Stress-related disorders, such as maladaptive responses to environmental or social challenges resulting in sustained activation of physiological stress pathways, impaired coping, and behavioral disruption.
- Affective or mood-related conditions, including anxiety-like, fear-based, or depression-like states characterized by withdrawal, anhedonia, reduced exploration, or alterations in emotional reactivity.

These conditions represent key determinants of animal welfare, as they affect both physiological homeostasis and the subjective experience of the animal. Novel pharmacological strategies may offer new therapeutic pathways to mitigate these states and enhance overall wellbeing.
Despite advances in clinical practice, many challenges remain unresolved, including the treatment of chronic pain, stress-induced disorders, and depression-like states in animals. Traditional pharmacological approaches, while valuable, often provide incomplete or limited solutions. In recent years, innovative therapeutics have emerged, ranging from cannabinoids and psychedelic analogues to novel classes of analgesics, anxiolytics, and neuroactive compounds. Alongside their therapeutic promise, these agents also raise important toxicological considerations that demand careful scientific evaluation. Understanding their pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and safety profiles is crucial for responsible implementation. By integrating perspectives from veterinary pharmacology, toxicology, neuroscience, and welfare science, this Research Topic seeks to foster a comprehensive dialogue on new therapeutic horizons for improving animal health and welfare.
Climate change is increasingly impacting animal health and welfare across species, intensifying thermal stress, altering disease patterns, and exacerbating conditions such as chronic pain, anxiety, and stress-related disorders. These evolving challenges demand innovative therapeutic approaches capable of addressing welfare impairments under new environmental pressures. This Research Topic therefore encourages submissions exploring how emerging pharmacological tools—analgesics, anxiolytics, neuroactive compounds, and other authorized agents—may help mitigate welfare problems aggravated by climate-driven stressors in companion, production, laboratory, and wildlife species.
The primary goal of this Research Topic is to explore innovative pharmacological approaches aimed at improving animal health and welfare, with a special focus on conditions such as chronic pain, stress-related disorders, and affective states that compromise quality of life. Conventional veterinary pharmacology has provided important tools, yet many of these challenges remain insufficiently addressed, creating a pressing need for novel strategies. Recent advances highlight the therapeutic potential of emerging compounds, including cannabinoids, psychedelic analogues, neuropeptides, and next-generation analgesics or anxiolytics. These agents open new possibilities for enhancing welfare, but also raise critical questions regarding pharmacological efficacy, safety, and long-term impact. Toxicological evaluation plays a central role in this process, ensuring that innovation is accompanied by rigorous assessment of risks and regulatory implications. To ensure scientific rigor and full regulatory compliance, this Research Topic focuses on pharmacologically active substances that are legally authorized or currently under formal evaluation by regulatory bodies such as the EMA, FDA, or corresponding national authorities. This includes new-generation or novel classes of analgesics, anxiolytics, anti-inflammatory agents, and neuroactive compounds with demonstrated or emerging relevance for improving animal health and welfare.
In addition to authorized pharmaceuticals, the Topic also welcomes research on natural products with validated biological activity, provided that their use complies with existing legal, ethical, and welfare standards. Studies addressing pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, safety, toxicology, and regulatory considerations are strongly encouraged.
This framework ensures that all contributions align with ethical veterinary practice, respect international legislation on drug development and use, and remain grounded in responsible, welfare-oriented innovation across species and clinical contexts.
This Research Topic aims to bring together researchers across disciplines—pharmacologists, toxicologists, veterinarians, neuroscientists, and ethologists—to develop a comprehensive framework for evaluating and implementing novel therapeutics that promote both animal health and welfare.
To provide clear scientific boundaries, this Research Topic explicitly encompasses a broad but defined range of animal species. Submissions may focus on companion animals (e.g., dogs, cats), livestock and production species (e.g., cattle, small ruminants, swine, poultry), laboratory animals commonly used in pharmacology and toxicology, or wildlife and exotic species, provided all work adheres to relevant ethical and legal frameworks. By defining these species groups, the Topic ensures clarity while encouraging interdisciplinary contributions that address welfare-related conditions across diverse veterinary contexts.
The Research Topic encompasses studies evaluating legally authorized and ethically acceptable routes of drug administration across veterinary species. These may include oral, injectable (intramuscular, subcutaneous, intravenous), transdermal, inhaled, topical, or implant-based delivery systems, as well as emerging or advanced drug-delivery technologies. All administration routes must comply with regulatory frameworks, animal-welfare standards, and good veterinary practice. Submissions addressing comparative efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetics, and toxicological implications of different administration routes are particularly encouraged.
This Research Topic seeks contributions exploring innovative pharmacological strategies for improving animal health and welfare across all veterinary contexts. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids, psychedelics, neuroactive compounds, novel analgesics, or anxiolytics; the management of chronic pain, stress-related disorders, or depression-like states; and toxicological, pharmacokinetic, or pharmacodynamic evaluations of emerging compounds. Interdisciplinary studies integrating veterinary medicine, pharmacology, toxicology, neuroscience, ethology, or welfare science are particularly encouraged. We welcome a broad range of manuscript types, including original research, clinical case reports, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and hypothesis-generating studies or protocol proposals. There are no restrictions on species, study design, or treatment type. This open approach aims to foster innovative research and dialogue, highlighting novel therapeutic avenues and advancing evidence-based strategies to enhance the health, welfare, and quality of life of animals.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Animal welfare, Animal health, Veterinary medicine, Veterinary pharmacology, Novel therapeutics, Chronic pain and stress, Drug development

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.