Pain of the joint in the osteoarthritis (OA) and neuropathic pain cause a significant decrease in the quality of life (QOL) of the patients. To develop analgesics, a simplified method for evaluating analgesic effect has been becoming necessary although the methods like use of von frey filament, thermal stimulation or a load difference measurement method are existed, which require expert techniques for measurement. Therefore, we tried to use Catwalk which can acquire data by the animal walks to establish a method for pain evaluation in neuropathic pain and MIA-induced OA model in this study.
As the results obtained by measuring the pain parameters using the Catwalk, filament method, thermal stimulation method or load difference measurement method, a significant low value was observed in the pain parameters in both the neuropathic pain and OA model animals compared with the normal animals. On the other hand, administration of celecoxib, tramadol and pregabalin showed a significant high value in the pain parameters in the pain model animals compared with the control animals.
Based on the above results, it is suggested that walking analysis by Catwalk is useful for evaluation of analgesics.