Tail-Flick Latency and Self-Mutilation Following Unilateral Deafferentation in Rats

Title:

Tail-Flick Latency and Self-Mutilation Following Unilateral Deafferentation in Rats

Creator:

Kříž, N., Yamamotová, A. , Tobiáš, J., and Rokyta, R.

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:c1738fcb-9655-4ca4-9eed-3a85c50f8899
uuid:c1738fcb-9655-4ca4-9eed-3a85c50f8899

Subject:

Deafferentation, Nociception, Rats, Self-mutilation, and Tail-flick

Type:

article, model:article, and TEXT

Description:

Unilateral deafferentation induced by transection of the C4-C8 dorsal roots of spinal cord, followed by a complex of abnormal self-mutilating behavior, is interpreted as an animal model of chronic nociception. The objective of our study was to test the differences in tail-flick latency between intact control and unilaterally deafferented animals and to assess the changes in their acute nociceptive sensation. The initial hypothesis was that deafferentation-induced painful sensation might cause stress-induced analgesia that should be manifested as prolonged tail-flick latency. The experiment was carried out on 11 male and 10 female adult Wistar rats. The tail-flick latency was repeatedly measured over a period of 10 consecutive weeks both in the preoperative baseline period and following multiple cervical dorsal rhizotomy. Contrary to our hypothesis, unilateral deafferentation was followed by a significant shortening of the tail-flick latency both in males and females. In deafferented animals, compared to the controls, variations of tail-flick latency were reduced. In individual animals after deafferentation, concurrent dynamic changes were observed in self-mutilating behavior, in a loss and regaining of body weight, and in tail-flick latency. Our data suggest that changes in tail-flick latency may be interpreted in terms of central sensitization and that tail-flick latency might be considered as a useful marker of chronic nociception.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
policy:public

Source:

Physiological research | 2006 Volume:55 | Number:2

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false