When you look into the literature there are not many publications with a scientific attempt to show the effects of equine massage therapy.

We have worked on this topic by measuring the size of the horse’s pupil before and after the treatment. By calculating and statistic analysis, we could indeed show that the treatment had an relaxing and calming effect for the horse.

For a better understanding it might be useful to know that the pupil’s size is only regulated by the autonomic nerve system, formely referred to vegetative nerve system.

The work was published in Scientific Reports as open access, because we think it is important that everybody who is interested in this topic should have the possibility to read the article.

If you want to read the article, follow the link to our publication: Pupillometry to show stress release during equine sports massage therapy

A shows the image of one eye of the horse. The outline of the iris is the white line in A, traced with the line tool as a red line in B. The number of pixels in this area provides the reference values as it will not change over time. The pupil is the oval darker area in A, traced with an orange line in B. The number of pixels in this area defines the pupil area’s size, which changes over time. To study whether the size of the pupil changed, the ratios of the pixels in the pupil and the reference areas are calculated and compared before and after the treatment.