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- Title
Translating nociceptive processing into human pain models.
- Authors
Schmelz, Martin
- Abstract
As volunteers can easily communicate quality and intensity of painful stimuli, human pain models appear to be ideally suited to test analgesic compounds, but also to study pain mechanisms. Acute stimulation of nociceptors under physiologic conditions has proven not to be of particular use as an experimental pain model. In contrast, if the experimental models include sensitization of the peripheral or central pain processing they may indeed mimic certain aspects of chronic pain conditions. Peripheral inflammatory conditions can be induced experimentally with sensitization patterns correlating to clinical inflammatory pain. There are also well-characterized models of central sensitization, which mimic aspects of neuropathic pain patients such as touch evoked allodynia and punctate hyperalgesia. The main complaint of chronic pain patients, however, is spontaneous pain, but currently there is no human model available that would mimic chronic inflammatory or neuropathic pain. Thus, although being helpful for proof of concept studies and dose finding, current human pain models cannot replace patient studies for testing efficacy of analgesic compounds.
- Subjects
PAIN management; HYPERALGESIA; ALLODYNIA; NOCICEPTORS; ANALGESICS; CENTRAL pain
- Publication
Experimental Brain Research, 2009, Vol 196, Issue 1, p173
- ISSN
0014-4819
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00221-009-1809-2