Oct 16, 2024
Facial mechanical hyperalgesia testing in adult rats
- Amirah Wright1,
- Susan Murphy1,
- Pamela VandeVord1,2
- 1Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA;
- 2Salem VAMC
- PRECISE-TBI
Protocol Citation: Amirah Wright, Susan Murphy, Pamela VandeVord 2024. Facial mechanical hyperalgesia testing in adult rats. protocols.io https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.x54v92n9pl3e/v1
License: This is an open access protocol distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Protocol status: Working
We use this protocol and it's working
Created: September 24, 2024
Last Modified: October 16, 2024
Protocol Integer ID: 108270
Keywords: PRECISE-TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, pain, rat, hyperalgesia, von Frey
Disclaimer
None
Abstract
This is a protocol to describe the materials and methods utilized to perform facial mechanical hyperalgesia in adult rats. The model utilizes manual von Frey filaments applied to the periorbital region of the face using the “ascending stimulus” method. Pressure is applied for ~3 seconds until a response is observed.
The posting of this protocol is part of the mission of the PREClinical Interagency reSearch resourcE-TBI (PRECISE-TBI, precise-tbi.org), which aims to improve clinical translation of therapeutics by providing an online catalog and standardized protocols to reduce the variability of model usage between laboratories.
Materials
Stoelting Touch Test Sensory Probes, [RRID: SCR_025646]
bandana or towel
Restrain the rat so that only the head is exposed.
Take a towel or bandana and place it down on a flat surface.
Place the animal onto the towel in a prone position
Wrap both sides of the towel tightly around the animal, with its arms tucked into the towel as well.
Fold the excess material under the rat.
Once restrained, have one person hold the rat for a few minutes until it calms down.
Once calm, you can begin the test. Take the sensory probe and apply pressure to the periorbital region of the rat’s face. Apply pressure for ~3 seconds. (See: Note 1 and 2)
Keep going up in force values until a reaction has been observed. (See: Note 3)
Once a response has been observed and recorded, unwrap the animal and place them back into their home cage.
Notes
Notes
Note 1: For our purposes, we used the following filaments: 10, 15, 26, 60, 100, 180, and 300.
Note 2: The finer filaments will bend or bow when applied but thicker filaments will not bend as easily or at all.
Note 3: Common reactions to look out for are: jerking away from the filament, squinting of the eyes, audible noise, and short teeth chattering