Behavioral Assays for Orofacial Pain

描述(申请人提供)：用于评估啮齿类动物口腔面部疼痛的大多数方法都是从肢体和尾巴的机械和热刺激改编而来的。然而，这些方法获得的结果可能会受到实验者互动、动物注意力以及啮齿类动物在刺激面部周围时检测到的潜在视觉、听觉或胡须感觉线索的影响。理想情况下，疼痛次要的行为学应该在实验者干预最少的家庭笼子环境中进行。此外，应在白天和夜间进行评估，以实现对疼痛相关行为的更准确描述。这组研究中提出的方法和仪器有可能识别一组新的疼痛行为，并改进已被发现的其他技术的缺陷。拟议的措施有可能识别在口腔面部疼痛(如肌肉骨骼疼痛)中普遍存在的进食行为的细微变化。这项建议有三个具体目标，重点放在：(1)确定与存在或不存在轻度至中度口面部疼痛相关的可靠和有效的行为活动；(2)验证行为评估检测止痛剂剂量-反应效应的能力；以及(3)使用这些新发现的行为测量方法，测试一种非类固醇消炎药的疗效，该药物针对最近报道的在咀嚼肌肉疼痛存在时上调的特定离子通道。这项建议的总体目标是建立可靠和有效的行为喂养活动衡量标准，以准确反映口腔面部轻度至中度疼痛或无痛情况。这些行为参数可以用来评估针对特定口腔面部疼痛情况的治疗干预的效果。日间和夜间对家笼环境中口腔面部疼痛行为的自动评估将允许更高的啮齿动物评估吞吐量，并加快口腔面部疼痛新疗法的转化。 与公共卫生相关：涉及头部和面部的疼痛一直很难在动物身上测量。需要新的疼痛测量技术来评估动物面部疼痛，以便开发新的治疗方法。这项建议将确定动物的喂养行为，可以用来衡量轻度到中度的颌部肌肉疼痛。然后，这些行为将被用来测试治疗下颌肌肉疼痛的药物的能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Most of the methods used for orofacial pain assessment in rodents have been adapted from limb and tail mechanical and thermal stimulation. However, the results obtained by these methods can be influenced by experimenter interaction, animal attentiveness and potential visual, auditory or whisker sensory cues detected by the rodent when stimulating around the face. Ideally, ethology secondary to pain should be conducted in the home cage environment where there are minimal interventions by the experimenter. Additionally, assessment should be conducted both diurnally and nocturnally to achieve a more accurate representation of pain-related behaviors. The methodology and instrumentation proposed in this set of studies have the potential to identify a novel set of pain behaviors and improves on the deficiencies that have been identified with other techniques. The proposed measures have the potential to identify subtle changes in feeding behavior that are prevalent in orofacial pain conditions such as musculoskeletal pain. This proposal has three specific aims that focus on: (1) identification of behavioral activities associated with the presence or absence of mild to moderate orofacial pain that are reliable and valid; (2) validate the ability of the behavioral assessments to detect analgesic dose-response effects; and (3) using these newly identified behavioral measures, test the efficacy of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that targets specific ion channels recently reported to be upregulated in the presence of masticatory muscle pain. The overall goal of this proposal is to establish reliable and valid measures of behavioral feeding activities that accurately reflect mild to moderate orofacial pain or pain-free conditions. These behavioral parameters can then be used to evaluate the efficacy of therapeutic interventions that target specific orofacial pain conditions. The automated assessment of orofacial pain behavior in the home cage environment both diurnally and nocturnally would allow a higher throughput of rodent evaluation and quicken the translation of new pain therapeutics for orofacial pain. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Pain that involves the head and face has been difficult to measure in animals. New pain measuring techniques are needed to evaluate facial pain in animals so that new treatments can be developed. This proposal will identify animal feeding behaviors that can be used to measure mild to moderate jaw muscle pain. These behaviors will then be used to test the abilities of drugs to treat jaw muscle pain.