The assessment of pain using facial expressions in laboratory mice, rats, rabbits and macaques.

使用实验室小鼠、大鼠、兔子和猕猴的面部表情评估疼痛。

• 批准号: G1100563/1
• 负责人: Matthew Leach
• 金额: $ 31.57万
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G1100563%2F1
• 关键词: assessment; pain; using; facial; expressions

Worldwide millions of laboratory animals undergo potentially painful procedures as part of essential scientific research. In order for this pain to be relieved we must be able to effectively recognise it and to assess its severity. Although we have made considerable advances in the effective assessment of animal pain our current methods have major limitations that urgently need to be overcome: (1) Effective indicators of pain have been identified for a very limited range of painful procedures in a small number of laboratory animal species, because developing and applying the methods are very time consuming; (2) Current methods may only measure an animals? physical reaction to pain rather than how it makes them ?feel?. In humans, how we feel about our pain is more important than our physical reaction to it; (3) Some routinely used painkillers (e.g. morphine-like drugs) cause changes in commonly used indicators of pain that are similar to those seen in response to pain; (4) We seem to focus on the face of animals when trying to assess their pain, but almost all of the currently used indicators of pain are not observed in the face. The assessment of facial expressions exhibited in response to pain may offer a solution to these limitations. Facial expressions are often used in assessments of pain and other emotional states in humans, particularly in those who are unable to communicate verbally (e.g. newborn babies). We will investigate whether facial expressions can effectively be used to measure pain in animals following potentially painful procedures and whether this approach is an improvement on current techniques. We will develop and apply measurement of facial expressions in several different species. We will use it, together with existing methods, to assess the duration and severity of pain after different procedures. We will also test whether facial expressions can be use to evaluate the effectiveness of methods to alleviate pain (e.g. painkiller administration) and to develop and apply more humane endpoints.Initially we will assess whether facial expressions in mice change following procedures associated with both acute (e.g. post-surgical) and chronic (e.g. cancer) pain. We will then assess whether a similar approach can be used to assess post-surgical pain in rats, rabbits and macaques. It is important to note that we currently have no objective method of assessing post-operative pain in non-human primates.

全世界数以百万计的实验室动物经历潜在的痛苦程序作为必要的科学研究的一部分。为了缓解这种痛苦，我们必须能够有效地识别它并评估其严重性。虽然我们已经取得了相当大的进展，在有效的评估动物疼痛，我们目前的方法有重大的局限性，迫切需要克服：（1）有效的疼痛指标已被确定为一个非常有限的范围内的痛苦的程序在少数实验室动物物种，因为开发和应用的方法是非常耗时的;（2）目前的方法可能只测量动物？对疼痛的生理反应而不是疼痛如何产生感觉？在人类中，我们对疼痛的感觉比我们对疼痛的身体反应更重要;（3）一些常规使用的止痛药（例如吗啡类药物）引起常用疼痛指标的变化，这些变化与对疼痛的反应相似;（4）当我们试图评估动物的疼痛时，我们似乎专注于动物的面部，但几乎所有目前使用的疼痛指标都不能在面部观察到。对疼痛时面部表情的评估可能会为这些局限性提供一个解决方案。面部表情通常用于评估人类的疼痛和其他情绪状态，特别是那些无法口头交流的人（例如新生儿）。我们将研究面部表情是否可以有效地用于测量动物在潜在疼痛程序后的疼痛，以及这种方法是否是对现有技术的改进。我们将在几个不同的物种中开发和应用面部表情的测量。我们将使用它，与现有的方法一起，评估不同手术后疼痛的持续时间和严重程度。我们还将测试面部表情是否可以用于评估缓解疼痛的方法（例如止痛药管理）的有效性，并开发和应用更人性化的端点。最初，我们将评估小鼠的面部表情是否在与急性（例如手术后）和慢性（例如癌症）疼痛相关的程序后发生变化。然后，我们将评估是否可以使用类似的方法来评估大鼠，家兔和猕猴的术后疼痛。值得注意的是，我们目前还没有客观的方法来评估非人类灵长类动物的术后疼痛。