Department of Psychology, California State University, East Bay, Hayward, California.
Department of Psychology, Washington State University Vancouver, Vancouver, Washington, USA.
Behav Pharmacol. 2021 Apr 1;32(2&3):142-152. doi: 10.1097/FBP.0000000000000596.
Chronic pain affects approximately one-third of the population worldwide. The primary goal of animal research is to understand the neural mechanisms underlying pain so better treatments can be developed. Despite an enormous investment in time and money, almost no novel treatments for pain have been developed. There are many factors that contribute to this lack of translation in drug development. The mismatch between the goals of drug development in animals (inhibition of pain-evoked responses) and treatment in humans (restoration of function) is a major problem. To solve this problem, a number of pain-depressed behavioral tests have been developed to assess changes in normal behavior in laboratory animals. The use of home cage wheel running as a pain assessment tool is especially useful in that it is easy to use, provides an objective measurement of the magnitude and duration of pain, and is a clinically relevant method to screen novel drugs. Pain depresses activity in humans and animals, and effective analgesic treatments restore activity. Unlike traditional pain-evoked tests (e.g., hot plate, tail flick, von Frey test), restoration of home cage wheel running evaluates treatments for both antinociceptive efficacy and the absence of disruptive side effects (e.g., sedation, paralysis, nausea). This article reviews the literature using wheel running to assess pain and makes the case for home cage wheel running as an effective and clinically relevant method to screen novel analgesics for therapeutic potential.
慢性疼痛影响着全球约三分之一的人口。动物研究的主要目标是了解疼痛背后的神经机制，从而开发出更好的治疗方法。尽管在时间和金钱上投入巨大，但几乎没有新的疼痛治疗方法得到开发。有许多因素导致药物开发中的这种转化不足。药物开发的目标（抑制疼痛诱发的反应）与人类治疗（功能恢复）之间的不匹配是一个主要问题。为了解决这个问题，已经开发了许多疼痛抑制行为测试，以评估实验室动物正常行为的变化。使用家庭笼中的轮式跑步作为疼痛评估工具尤其有用，因为它易于使用，提供了疼痛程度和持续时间的客观测量，并且是一种临床相关的方法，可用于筛选新型药物。疼痛会抑制人类和动物的活动，而有效的镇痛治疗会恢复活动。与传统的疼痛诱发测试（例如热板、尾巴闪烁、von Frey 测试）不同，家庭笼轮式跑步的恢复评估了治疗的镇痛效果和无干扰副作用（例如镇静、麻痹、恶心）。本文综述了使用轮式跑步评估疼痛的文献，并提出了将家庭笼轮式跑步作为筛选新型镇痛剂治疗潜力的有效且临床相关方法的观点。
