Elsevier

Neuroscience

Volume 211, 1 June 2012, Pages 39-50
Neuroscience

Review
Tests and models of nociception and pain in rodents

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2011.12.041Get rights and content

Abstract

Nociception and pain is a large field of both neuroscience and medical research. Over time, various tests and models were developed in rodents to provide tools for fundamental and translational research on the topic. Tests using thermal, mechanical, and chemical stimuli, measures of hyperalgesia and allodynia, models of inflammatory or neuropathic pain, constitute a toolbox available to researchers. These tests and models allowed rapid progress on the anatomo-molecular basis of physiological and pathological pain, even though they have yet to translate into new analgesic drugs. More recently, a growing effort has been put forth trying to assess pain in rats or mice, rather than nociceptive reflexes, or at studying complex states affected by chronic pain. This aids to further improve the translational value of preclinical research in a field with balanced research efforts between fundamental research, preclinical work, and human studies. This review describes classical tests and models of nociception and pain in rodents. It also presents some recent and ongoing developments in nociceptive tests, recent trends for pain evaluation, and raises the question of the appropriateness between tests, models, and procedures.

This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Neuroscience Disease Models.

Highlights

▶Nociception refers to detection and unconscious treatment of information on noxious stimuli, whereas pain is a conscious subjective experience. ▶Various tests and models in rodents provide tools for fundamental and translational research. ▶Assessing pain in rodents, rather than nociceptive reflexes, remains a challenge. ▶Growing interest is given to complex states affected by chronic pain and potentially reflecting impaired quality of life. ▶Relevance of protocols relies on the appropriateness between models, tests, and procedures.

Section snippets

Nociception and pain

The distinction between nociception and pain is important to consider when using preclinical murine models (Table 1). According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), nociception is defined as “the neural processes of encoding and processing noxious stimuli,” whereas pain is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage” (Loeser and Treede, 2008).

Nociception thus includes the

Nociceptive tests

For a long time, the basic science of pain and the preclinical research on pain treatments essentially relied on nociceptive tests that were done on naive animals. Although it brought major advances to the pain field, the benefit for developing new treatments was more limited. Thus, therapeutic preclinical research should associate pain models to nociceptive tests to be more relevant.

Nociceptive tests use electrical, thermal, mechanical, or chemical stimuli (Le Bars et al., 2001). Some of them

Pain models

The various nociceptive tests offer useful and often easy-to-use tools for basic science. However, this toolbox, based on acute nociception assays, is not sufficient to perform translational research on pain and its treatments (Negus et al., 2006). There is the necessity for methods to induce more clinically relevant pain states, for example by using models of sustained or chronic pain as may be observed clinically.

Recent trends for pain evaluation in rodents

Despite criticism on the translational value of rodent models of pain and on tests used by basic researchers (Langley et al., 2008, Craig, 2009), progress brought by the preclinical pain field and its relevance should be acknowledged. The interactions are rather strong between clinicians and basic researchers, and research effort appears balanced between human studies, preclinical work, and fundamental research. As a consequence, the knowledge on the anatomo-molecular basis of physiological and

Beyond tests and models procedures are critical

Using the finest tests and models available, increasing research efforts to refine them as well as looking for new parameters, developing new automated tests to limit experimenter bias, or increase experimental throughput, is important, but it may be of limited impact with inappropriate procedures. Indeed, the relevance of preclinical research on rodents relies on the appropriateness between the chosen models, tests, and procedures, that is, on relevant protocols.

In this context, the choice of

Conclusion

Nociception and pain is an important field of both neuroscience and medical research. Over time, various tests and models were developed in rodents to provide tools for fundamental and translational research on the topic. Tests using thermal, mechanical and chemical stimuli, as well as measures of hyperalgesia and allodynia, models of inflammatory or neuropathic pain, are part of the toolbox available to researchers. These tests and models allowed rapid progress on fundamental aspects of

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by CNRS and by the Université de Strasbourg. The author thanks Pr. Marie-José Freund-Mercier, Dr. Ipek Yalcin, and Luis Somoza for their advices on the manuscript.

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