Department of Experimental Medicine, Pharmacology Division, University of Campania Vanvitelli, Naples, Italy.
Department of Anesthesia and Resuscitation, Biomedical Campus University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Curr Neuropharmacol. 2021;19(6):736-746. doi: 10.2174/1570159X18666200831153117.
The animal models of neuropathic pain that faithfully reproduce the symptoms that occur in humans are a fundamental tool for understanding the mechanisms underlying the disease, identifying new targets, and developing effective drugs. So far, the studies aimed at describing the animal models of neuropathic pain have been focused mainly on the sensory symptoms associated with the disease consisting of mechanical allodynia and hyperalgesia, cold allodynia and hyperalgesia, and heat hyperalgesia. However, affective and cognitive comorbidities occur in patients suffering from neuropathic pain, arising in a closely associated and dependent manner on the sensory symptoms. The same occurs in animal models of neuropathic pain in which anxiety- and depressive- like behaviors and cognitive disorders are observable at different time points from the induction of neuropathy. Today there are several tests available that exploit different paradigms in rodents for measuring sensorial, affective, and cognitive behavior. This review will describe those mainly used in the scientific community. The tests mainly used are based on the motor activity of the animals tested, so it is fundamental that it remains unaffected in the model used for inducing neuropathic pain. We hope that this review will be useful to the scientific community to direct the choice towards the best, most suitable, and simplest tests for the study of the sensory, affective, and cognitive symptoms associated with neuropathic pain.
能够真实再现人类疾病症状的神经性疼痛动物模型是理解疾病发病机制、寻找新靶点和开发有效药物的重要工具。迄今为止，用于描述神经性疼痛动物模型的研究主要集中在与疾病相关的感觉症状上，包括机械性痛觉过敏和痛觉超敏、冷感觉过敏和痛觉超敏、热痛觉过敏。然而，患有神经性疼痛的患者会出现情感和认知共病，这些共病与感觉症状密切相关且相互依赖。在神经性疼痛的动物模型中也会发生同样的情况，在诱导神经病变后的不同时间点，可观察到焦虑和抑郁样行为以及认知障碍。目前有几种可在啮齿类动物中使用的不同范式来测量感觉、情感和认知行为的测试方法。本文将对这些主要方法进行描述。这些主要测试方法基于受试动物的运动活动，因此，在用于诱导神经性疼痛的模型中，动物的运动活动应不受影响，这一点至关重要。我们希望这篇综述能为科学界提供参考，以便为研究与神经性疼痛相关的感觉、情感和认知症状选择最合适、最简便的测试方法。
