A Novel Gnawing Assay to Quantify Nociception in Models of Chronic Orofacial Pain

描述（由申请人提供）：慢性口面部疼痛影响10%的美国人，目前没有有效的治疗方法。最常见和最严重的口面部疼痛包括头颈癌痛、TMJ痛和咀嚼肌痛。口腔面部疼痛患者的主要功能问题是咀嚼疼痛。然而，目前还没有动物行为学分析量化伤害感觉对口腔功能的影响，并与患者的症状相对应。我们假设慢性口面部疼痛产生可量化的咀嚼变化。此外，我们假设减少的啃咬功能可以作为伤害感觉的衡量标准。为了验证这些假设，我们设计、定制和试点测试了一种新的设备，可以客观地测量啮齿动物的咀嚼功能。在这个项目中，我们将使用我们的新设备来量化头颈癌疼痛、TMJ疼痛和咀嚼肌疼痛动物模型中咀嚼功能的显著损害。为了证实这三种模型中咀嚼功能的改变是继发于疼痛，我们将展示临床用于治疗这些形式的慢性疼痛的药物的逆转。我们预计，我们的工作将从根本上有助于提高对三叉神经系统伤害机制的理解，提供一个定量的功能性伤害分析，不依赖于主观行为解释，也不需要研究者的观察时间。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Chronic orofacial pain affects 10% of Americans and there currently is no effective treatment. The most common and most severe forms of orofacial pain include head and neck cancer pain, TMJ pain and masticatory muscle pain. The primary functional problem for orofacial pain patients is pain with chewing. However, there is no animal behavioral assay that quantifies the impact of nociception on oral function and that parallels the symptoms of patients. We hypothesize that chronic orofacial pain produces quantifiable masticatory changes. Moreover, we hypothesize that reduced gnawing function can be used as a measure of nociception. To test these hypotheses we have designed, custom built and pilot tested a novel device that objectively measures gnawing function in rodents. In this project we will use our novel device to quantify significant impairment of gnawing function in animal models of head and neck cancer pain, TMJ pain and masticatory muscle pain. To confirm that the altered gnawing function in the three models is secondary to pain we will demonstrate reversal with agents used clinically to treat these forms of chronic pain. We anticipate that our work will contribute fundamentally to improved understanding of nociceptive mechanisms of the trigeminal system by providing a quantitative functional nociceptive assay that does not depend on subjective behavioral interpretation and does not require observational time by an investigator.