"Ratness of rats" may be a new measure to measure pain

The standard of pain is a joke that was once spread by chain mail "HanaguAlthough there may be people reminiscent of, in the actual medical field infants' pain is crying and observation of movement, etc. in children, observation of facial expressions and body language (FLACC scaleEtc.) and inquiries, in adults interview or questionnaire formBPIYaMcGill Pain QuestionnaireIt is judged by self declaration etc etc) etc.

McGill UniversityWhenUniversity of British ColumbiaBy research,mouseLike a human being, it became obvious that the degree of pain you feel is expressed in your expression, and it seems that the scale "Mouse Grimace Scale" has been developed that evaluates the pain gradually from the expression. In addition to helping to improve the treatment of laboratory animals, it is expected to lead to the development of better analgesics.

Details are as below.'Mouse grimace scale' to help identifying pain in humans and animals

"Facial expression" is widely used as a criterion for evaluating the pain of human beings (especially infants), but whether animals other than humans express pain by expression has been verified systematically until now I heard he did not.

In a study by Professor Jeffrey Mogil of McGill University et al. And Professor Kenneth Craig of British Columbia University et al., Mice exposed to mild painful stimuli express discomfort as human beings, and the expression changes according to the degree of pain Was revealed. Thesis isNature MethodsIt is published in the magazine.

Research on "pain" should contribute greatly to the development of human analgesics if it becomes possible to accurately measure the pain felt by laboratory animals, especially for rodents such as mice, because it is large. is. Moreover, in addition to helping to remove unnecessary pain of laboratory mice from the field of biomedical research, Professor Mogil says that it will also affect general animal health care improvement.

Professors Mogil of McGill University's Pain Genetics Institute et al. Photographed the mouse before taking a painful stimulus and in the middle of experiencing pain and analyzed the image. Painful stimulus given to mice is injection of inflammatory drug solution widely used in the world in rodent's sensation of pain sensation etc. The level of pain experienced by mice is headache and finger The inflammation of the thing is that it was calm enough to easily quench with commercially available pain relievers such as aspirin and tylenol.

After that, the image of the mouse was sent to Professor Craig of the University of British Columbia who specializes in the field of evaluating the pain of people with communication difficulty by infants and languages ​​by facial expressions, and the scale for evaluating the pain of the mouse is It was created. In this "Mouse Grimace Scale", it is to evaluate and score five elements of eye closure, nose bulging, cheek bulging, ear position and whisker position.

In the future research, it is possible that this scale can be applied to species other than mouse, or whether the analgesic drug administered to mice after surgery is actually effective at the general dosage, I will verify that I will respond to the expression of pain.