ENTRIES A–Z
Philip Winn in Dictionary of Biological Psychology, 2003
(from Greek, an: not, algeein: to feel pain) Analgesia is a reduction in the sensation of PAIN, without inducing SLEEP or unconsciousness. Analgesics are drugs that induce analgesia: many drugs have analgesic properties, ranging from MORPHINE through to aspirin. Testing drugs for their analgesic properties is difficult, since it necessarily involves inflicting pain and looking for a reduction in response to it when drugs are given. With rats, various tests have been used: the TAIL-FLICK TEST involves warming a part of the rat's tail (a focused heat lamp is typically used) and the latency to flick the tail away measured. The hot-plate test involves measuring escape latency from a hot plate and the related FLINCH-JUMP TEST involves passing electric current through a grid floor and monitoring rats' flinching and jumping responses. Inflicting pain on an animal and measuring responses to it is clearly an issue that requires careful ethical consideration. Evaluation of alternative methods that could be used, and careful consideration of the likely costs and benefits of an experiment, has to be made. It is worth remembering though that the management of pain in both human and veterinary practice remains an enormous challenge to physicians and that methods to alleviate pain still require considerable improvement.
Neural Regulation
Stephen W. Carmichael, Susan L. Stoddard in The Adrenal Medulla 1986 - 1988, 2017
Intrathecal administration of substance P at the T-8 level has been shown to increase the secretion of adrenal medullary catecholamines. Cridland and Henry (1988) reported that such treatment also increased the response time in the tail-flick test in unanesthetized, restrained rats. Intrathecal administration of thyrotropin-releasing hormone or oxytocin, which also increases sympathetic output, did not alter the tail-flick response. The authors suggested that substance P may activate spinal sympathetic neurons at T-8 to cause the release of opioid peptides from the adrenal medulla. The central action of such circulating opioid peptides may be responsible for the depression of the tail-flick response.
Other Central Nervous System Diseases and Disorders
Divya Vohora in The Third Histamine Receptor, 2008
Therefore, the role of H3R in nociception is clearly complex. Neither RAMH nor thioperamide alone elicited any antinociceptive action using thermal or chemical tests. However, thioperamide reduced the effects of morphine in the tail-emersion model, whereas RAMH potentiated its effects in the hotplate test. This indicates the close association of the opioid and histaminergic systems in certain pain states [50]. Conversely, in the tail flick test, pretreatment with thioperamide attenuated the inhibition of the tail flick response induced by endorphin or U50, 4888H, but not morphine, administered i.t. [51].
Phosphatidylcholine attenuated docetaxel-induced peripheral neurotoxicity in rats
Published in Drug and Chemical Toxicology, 2018
Sung Tae Kim, Eun Jung Kyung, Jung Sook Suh, Ho Sung Lee, Jun Ho Lee, Soo In Chae, Eon Sub Park, Yoon Hee Chung, Jinhyung Bae, Tae Jin Lee, Won Mo Lee, Uy Dong Sohn, Ji Hoon Jeong
Figure 3 shows thermal threshold change of each group in hot plate test (A) and tail flick test (B). In hot plate test, thermal nociceptive thresholds in docetaxel group were significantly lower than control group on day 21 and 28 (f = 0.6123 and p < 0.05 on day 21; f = 0.9212 and p < 0.01 on day 28). Docetaxel + PC group showed statistically significant increase of thermal nociceptive thresholds on day 28 (f = 0.5395 and p < 0.05 on day 28). In tail flick test, thermal nociceptive thresholds were significantly decreased in docetaxel group compared with control group on day 14, 21, and 28 (f = 0.1939 and p < 0.05 on day 14; f = 0.2084 and p < 0.05 on day 21; f = 0.8698 and p < 0.01 on day 28). In docetaxel + PC group, thermal nociceptive thresholds were significantly higher than docetaxel group on day 28 (f = 0.8753 and p < 0.01 on day 28).
Chronic stress influences nociceptive sensitivity of female rats in an estrous cycle-dependent manner
Published in Stress, 2020
Chun-Xiao Yang, Yi Wang, Qi Lu, Yan-Na Lian, Enoch Odame Anto, Ying Zhang, Wei Wang
Tail-flick test (Nazeri, Razavinasab, Abareghi, & Shabani, 2014) was performed after a vaginal smear in the morning on the 3rd day of every week and used to measure the pain response to acute thermal noxious stimuli. The rats were maintained in a tube and placed on the apparatus (PL-200, Taimeng, Chengdu, China). Their tails were allowed to hang freely. A beam of light with 55% intensity was focused at a 5 cm distant on the rat’s tail. The tail-flick latency was defined as the time from turning on the light to tail-flick to the side. To avoid burning damage to the tissue, a cutoff time of 10 s was defined as the maximal thermal pain latency. The average tail-flick latency time was calculated from three consecutive tests with an interval of about 5 min.
Topical anesthetic and pain relief using penetration enhancer and transcriptional transactivator peptide multi-decorated nanostructured lipid carriers
Published in Drug Delivery, 2021
Tao Jiang, Shuangshuang Ma, Yangyang Shen, Yuwen Li, Ruirui Pan, Huaixin Xing
A tail-flick test was utilized to assess the in vivo analgesic effect (Zhang et al., 2017). A focused radiant heat source was applied as a harmful heat stimulus to the back surface of the tail. LID loaded NLC, free LID (concentration of LID was 2%), TAT/PB NLC, and 0.9% saline were smeared onto the tail surface for 5 min, separately. Then the tail-flick test started and lasted for a total of 75 min, with every 5 min for the first 30 min and every 15 min for the last 45 min. The maximum possible effect (MPE) was calculated to represent the analgesic effect e using formulation (3):
Related Knowledge Centers
- Dolorimeter
- Naloxone
- Pain
- Naltrexone
- Analgesic
- Nociception Assay
- Hot Plate Test
- Animal Testing
- Threshold of Pain
- Model Organism