Synonym
Mechanical Allodynia Test; cold allodynia test
Definition
Allodynia is defined as “pain due to a stimulus which does not normally provoke pain” by the International Association for the Study of Pain (Lindblom et al. 1986). It is important to recognize that allodynia involves a change in the quality of a sensation, since the original modality is normally non-painful but the response is painful. There is, thus, a loss of specificity of a sensory modality.
Characteristics
Because allodynia is an evoked pain, testing requires an external stimulation of non-painful quality. Two different types of stimulation have been used to test allodynia in animal models of neuropathic pain: mechanical and cold. All testing methods rely on foot withdrawal response to stimulus, based on the premise that the animal’s avoidance of touching or cooling is an allodynic reaction.
Mechanical Allodynia Test: Foot Withdrawal Response to Von Frey Filament Stimulus
Since mechanical allodynia is a major...
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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Chung, K. (2007). Allodynia Test, Mechanical and Cold Allodynia. In: Schmidt, R., Willis, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Pain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29805-2_156
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29805-2_156
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