Abstract
Pain is one of the most important variables that members of the lab animal science community try to control and minimize, and it is a critical topic of research in clinical and basic sciences. Objective measurements of pain severity, especially in non-verbal animals that are used as disease models, can be difficult to obtain, but several developments in behavioral neuroscience are making the measurement of pain more consistent, automated and accurate.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
We are sorry, but there is no personal subscription option available for your country.
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Schaible, H.G. in Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology. (ed. Stein, C.) Part I, 3–28 (Springer, Berlin, 2006).
Mogil, J.S. & Crager, S.E. What should we be measuring in behavioral studies of chronic pain in animals? Pain 112, 12–15 (2004).
Mogil, J.S. Animal models of pain: progress and challenges. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 10, 283–294 (2009).
Beatriz, P. et al. Changes in saccharin preference behavior as a primary outcome to evaluate pain and analgesia in acetic acid-induced visceral pain in mice. J. Pain Res. 8, 663–673 (2015).
Landa, L. Pain in domestic animals and how to assess it: a review. Vet. Med. 57, 185–192 (2012).
Sotocinal, S.G. et al. The rat grimace scale: a partially automated method for quantifying pain in the laboratory rat via facial expressions. Mol. Pain 7, 55 (2011).
Langford, D.J. et al. Coding of facial expressions of pain in the laboratory mouse. Nat. Methods 7, 447–449 (2010).
Keating S.J.C., Thomas, A.A., Flecknell, P.A. & Leach, M.C. Evaluation of EMLA cream for preventing pain during tattooing of rabbits: changes in physiological, behavioural and facial expression responses. PLoS One 7, e44437 (2012).
Escudero, A.P., Page, J.V., Hinz, R.C., Arganda, S. & Polavieja, G.G. idTracker: tracking individuals in a group by automatic identification of unmarked animals. Nat. Methods 11, 743–748 (2014).
Curtright, A. et al. Modeling nociception in zebrafish: a way forward for unbiased analgesic discovery. PLoS One 10, e0116766 (2015).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Graham, D., Hampshire, V. Methods for measuring pain in laboratory animals. Lab Anim 45, 99–101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.962
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.962