We found that exposure of mice and rats to male but not female experimenters produces pain inhibition. Male-related stimuli induced a robust physiological stress response that results in stress-induced analgesia. This effect could be replicated with T-shirts worn by men, bedding material from gonadally intact and unfamiliar male mammals, and presentation of compounds secreted from the human axilla. Experimenter sex can thus affect apparent baseline responses in behavioral testing.

Olfactory exposure to males, including men, causes stress and related analgesia in rodents.

Reciprocal signalling between immunocompetent cells in the central nervous system (CNS) has emerged as a key phenomenon underpinning pathological and chronic pain mechanisms Neuronal excitability can be powerfully enhanced both by classical neurotransmitters derived from neurons, and by immune mediators released from CNS-resident microglia and astrocytes, and from infiltrating cells such as T cells In this Review, we discuss the current understanding of the contribution of central immune mechanisms to pathological pain, and how the heterogeneous immune functions of different cells in the CNS could be harnessed to develop new therapeutics for pain control Given the prevalence of chronic pain and the incomplete efficacy of current drugs — which focus on suppressing aberrant neuronal activity — new strategies to manipulate neuroimmune pain transmission hold considerable promise

Pathological pain and the neuroimmune interface

Chronic pain is maintained in part by central sensitization, a phenomenon of synaptic plasticity, and increased neuronal responsiveness in central pain pathways after painful insults Accumulating evidence suggests that central sensitization is also driven by neuroinflammation in the peripheral and central nervous system A characteristic feature of neuroinflammation is the activation of glial cells, such as microglia and astrocytes, in the spinal cord and brain, leading to the release of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines Recent studies suggest that central cytokines and chemokines are powerful neuromodulators and play a sufficient role in inducing hyperalgesia and allodynia after central nervous system administration Sustained increase of cytokines and chemokines in the central nervous system also promotes chronic widespread pain that affects multiple body sites Thus, neuroinflammation drives widespread chronic pain via central sensitization We also discuss sex-dependent glial/immune signaling in chronic pain and new therapeutic approaches that control neuroinflammation for the resolution of chronic pain

Neuroinflammation and Central Sensitization in Chronic and Widespread Pain

We recently demonstrated the utility of quantifying spontaneous pain in mice via the blinded coding of facial expressions. As the majority of preclinical pain research is in fact performed in the laboratory rat, we attempted to modify the scale for use in this species. We present herein the Rat Grimace Scale, and show its reliability, accuracy, and ability to quantify the time course of spontaneous pain in the intraplantar complete Freund's adjuvant, intraarticular kaolin-carrageenan, and laparotomy (post-operative pain) assays. The scale's ability to demonstrate the dose-dependent analgesic efficacy of morphine is also shown. In addition, we have developed software, Rodent Face Finder®, which successfully automates the most labor-intensive step in the process. Given the known mechanistic dissociations between spontaneous and evoked pain, and the primacy of the former as a clinical problem, we believe that widespread adoption of spontaneous pain measures such as the Rat Grimace Scale might lead to more successful translation of basic science findings into clinical application.

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The Rat Grimace Scale: a partially automated method for quantifying pain in the laboratory rat via facial expressions.

Rodents are commonly used to study the pathophysiological mechanisms of pain as studies in humans may be difficult to perform and ethically limited. As pain cannot be directly measured in rodents, many methods that quantify "pain-like" behaviors or nociception have been developed. These behavioral methods can be divided into stimulus-evoked or non-stimulus evoked (spontaneous) nociception, based on whether or not application of an external stimulus is used to elicit a withdrawal response. Stimulus-evoked methods, which include manual and electronic von Frey, Randall-Selitto and the Hargreaves test, were the first to be developed and continue to be in widespread use. However, concerns over the clinical translatability of stimulus-evoked nociception in recent years has led to the development and increasing implementation of non-stimulus evoked methods, such as grimace scales, burrowing, weight bearing and gait analysis. This review article provides an overview, as well as discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the most commonly used behavioral methods of stimulus-evoked and non-stimulus-evoked nociception used in rodents.

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Methods Used to Evaluate Pain Behaviors in Rodents

Facial expression is widely used as a measure of pain in infants; whether nonhuman animals display such pain expressions has never been systematically assessed. We developed the mouse grimace scale (MGS), a standardized behavioral coding system with high accuracy and reliability; assays involving noxious stimuli of moderate duration are accompanied by facial expressions of pain. This measure of spontaneously emitted pain may provide insight into the subjective pain experience of mice.

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Stephanie Echols

Papers

Coding of facial expressions of pain in the laboratory mouse