Operant Behavioral Instrument for Measuring Trigeminal Neuropathic Pain in Rodent

描述（由申请人提供）：慢性疼痛仍然是社会的主要负担，严重影响数百万人，每年花费数十亿美元。尽管我们对疼痛的理解取得了重大进展，但很少有新的治疗方法成功地转化为临床护理。这种翻译的一个特别不足是缺乏高通量的，商业上可用的体内分析。为了解决这一缺陷，我们正在完善我们新的操作行为系统来评估啮齿动物的疼痛。中心假设是操作性分析可以提供一种敏感、可靠和临床相关的方法来评估感觉和伤害性加工。本文将研究三个具体目标：(1)评估用于手术疼痛测试的peltier热刺激系统；(2)开发并优化手术疼痛测试系统的软件控制；(3)对多链接的操作行为盒单元进行评价。我们将使用我们在第一阶段拨款中开发的创新操作系统来实现这些目标，该系统以奖励-冲突范式评估热痛。提出的研究的基本原理是，一个软件驱动的体内系统将允许高通量的方法来完成行为疼痛和镇痛研究。我们正在开发和商业化一种创新产品，以满足这些需求。考虑到Stoelting公司在开发产品方面的专业知识和博士的配对，我们特别适合完成这项工作。Neubert和Caudle的疼痛研究经验。我们完成了第一阶段提案的所有里程碑，第二阶段的赠款将以我们的成功为基础。这条产品线可以大大减少新的镇痛疗法的筛选和评估时间，极大地增加了发现优质镇痛药的机会。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Chronic pain remains a major burden on society, significantly affecting millions of people and costing the populace billions annually. Despite major advances made to our understanding of pain, very few new therapies have successfully translated to clinical care. A particular shortfall in this translation is the lack of a high-throughput, commercially available in vivo assay. To address this deficit, we are refining our novel operant behavioral system for assessing pain in rodents. The central hypothesis is that operant assays can provide a sensitive, reliable, and clinically relevant way to evaluate sensory and nociceptive processing. Three specific aims will be investigated: (1) to evaluate a peltier thermal-stimulus system for operant pain testing; (2) to develop and optimize the software control of the operant pain-testing system; and (3) to evaluate multiple-linked operant behavior box units. We will achieve these aims using the innovative operant system that we developed in the Phase I grant, which assesses thermal pain in a reward-conflict paradigm. The rationale for the proposed research is that a software-driven, in vivo system will allow for a high- throughput approach for completing behavioral pain and analgesic studies. We are developing and commercializing an innovative product that will meet these needs. We are particularly well suited to complete this work, given the pairing of Stoelting Company's expertise in developing the product and Drs. Neubert and Caudle's pain-research experience. We completed all of the Phase I proposal's milestones, and this Phase II grant will build on our success. This product line could significantly reduce the time for new pain-relieving therapies to be screened and evaluated, greatly enhancing the opportunity for discovery of a superior analgesic. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Successful development of this reliable, high-throughput operant pain-assessment device would lead to commercial success through both academic and pharmaceutical institutions. This commercialization would create a method to more quickly convey new viable pain treatments from bench to bedside; if this helped accelerate even one new effective analgesic therapy, there would be tremendous societal benefit. This project will provide a key step in reaching this goal of advancing translational pain research.