Katrina Ask

In my PhD project I investigate which behaviors and facial expressions that are related to orthopedic pain. I use pain scales to assess the pain experienced by the animal and evaluate the performance of the pain scales. Changes in facial activity occuring during pain in horses are described with the objective system EquiFACS.

To understand how movement asymmetries are associated with pain, it is important to collect detailed information about gait adaptations during lameness. Therefore, I use several systems for objective gait analysis to detect lameness in horses and cows. 

I teach veterinary students and veterinary nursing students in canine and equine anatomy of the locomotor apparatus, and comparative and clinical aspects of it. I have also been co-supervisor for bachelor and master theses.

More about the research team I'm a part of and the research we do:
For a long animal life
Horses in Pain (HiP)

I graduated as a veterinarian (DVM) in 2012, and have then worked in ambulatory equine and bovine practice. In 2014 I completed an internship in equine surgery and medicine, and worked as an equine veterinarian in Denmark, before I started my PhD in August 2017. 

My main supervisor is Marie Rhodin

Ask, K., Andersen, P.H., Tamminen, L-T., Rhodin, M., Hernlund, E. 2022. Performance of four equine pain scales and their association to movement asymmetry in horses with induced orthopedic pain. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9:938022, doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.938022. 

Broome, S., Ask, K., Rashid-Engstrom, M., Andersen, P.H., Kjellström, H. 2022. Sharing pain: Using pain domain transfer for video recognition of low grade orthopedic pain in horses. PLoS ONE 17(3):e0263854, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263854. 

Tijssen, M., Serra Braganca, F.M., Ask, K., Rhodin, M., Andersen, P.H., Telezhenko, E., Bergsten, C., Nielen, M., Hernlund, E. 2022. Kinematic gait characteristics of straight line walk in clinically sound dairy cows. PLoS ONE 16(7):e0253479, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253479. 

Rashid, M., Broome, S., Ask, K., Hernlund, E., Andersen, P.H., Kjellström, H., Lee, Y.J. 2022. Equine Pain Behavior Classification via Self-Supervised Disentangled Pose Representation. Conference: 2022 IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), Hawaii. doi: 10.1109/WACV51458.2022.00023

Andersen, P.H., Broome, S., Rashid, M., Lundblad, J., Ask, K., Li, Z., Hernlund, E., Rhodin, M., Kjellström, H. 2021. Towards Machine Recognition of Facial Expressions of Pain in Horses. Animals 11(6):1643. doi: 10.3390/ani11061643. 

Ask, K., Rhodin, M., Tamminen, L-T., Hernlund, E., Andersen, P.H. 2020. Identification of Body Behaviors and Facial Expressions Associated with Induced Orthopedic Pain in Four Equine Pain Scales. Animals 10(11):2155. doi: 10.3390/ani10112155.

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