BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT OF PAIN DETECTION AND TOLERANCE IN MONKEYS

Cebus albifrons monkeys received electrical stimulation of the hindlimbs over a wide range of intensities. On trials signalled by a blue light, the animals were permitted to escape shock by pressing a disc, or shock was terminated after 8 sec (free escape). Escape force (disc pressure) was found to...

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Published inJournal of the experimental analysis of behavior Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 125 - 132
Main Authors Manning, Alexander A., Vierck Jr, Charles J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.01.1973
Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
Subjects
Animals
Avoidance Learning
Behavior, Animal
Conditioning, Operant
Differential Threshold
Electroshock
Escape Reaction
Haplorhini
Hindlimb - physiology
Male
Models, Biological
Pain
Psychophysics
Punishment
Tail - physiology
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ISSN0022-5002
1938-3711
DOI10.1901/jeab.1973.19-125

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Summary:Cebus albifrons monkeys received electrical stimulation of the hindlimbs over a wide range of intensities. On trials signalled by a blue light, the animals were permitted to escape shock by pressing a disc, or shock was terminated after 8 sec (free escape). Escape force (disc pressure) was found to increase as stimulation intensity increased well beyond escape threshold, while shock duration curves reached plateau at the mid-range of intensities. The shock duration curves generated by free escape responses should be comparable to pain detection functions obtained by similar operations in humans, and the curves were stable over months of testing, as is generally found in pain-detection studies. On trials signalled by a red light, the animals received intense tail shock immediately after escape responses (punished escape), or, if they endured leg shock for 8 sec without escaping, then they could avoid tail shock with a panel press. The shock duration curves generated by punished escape responses should be comparable to pain tolerance functions as defined for human subjects, and the escape thresholds were considerably higher on red-light trials. As in human studies, the tolerance curves were not stable over repeated testing sessions, and some feature of the paradigm forced a progression toward extremely high levels of tolerance.
Bibliography:This research was supported by Grant NS07261 from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke. The research described involved animals maintained in animal-care facilities fully accredited by the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. The animals' care was provided in part by N.I.H. Grant FR00421. We thank James Austin for design of electronic circuitry. During this investigation, Dr. Manning was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship from the Center for Neurobiological Sciences (Grant MH10320 from the National Institutes of Mental Health).
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This research was supported by Grant NS07261 from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke. The research described involved animals maintained in animal-care facilities fully accredited by the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. The animals' care was provided in part by N.I.H. Grant FR00421. We thank James Austin for design of electronic circuitry. During this investigation, Dr. Manning was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship from the Center for Neurobiological Sciences (Grant MH10320 from the National Institutes of Mental Health). Reprints may be obtained from C. J. Vierck, Jr., Department of Neuroscience, University of Florida, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32601.
ISSN:0022-5002
1938-3711
DOI:10.1901/jeab.1973.19-125