Inflammatory nociception responses do not vary with age, but diminish with the pain history

Abstract

Some of the relevant factors that must be considered when dealing with old age include its growing numbers in the general population and pain contention in this age group. In this sense, it is important to study whether antinociceptive responses change with age. To elucidate this point, persistent pain in animals is the preferred model. In addition, the response to inflammatory pain in the same individual must be explored along its lifetime. Male Wistar rats were infiltrated with carrageenan (50 μl intraplantar) and tested 3 h and 24 h after injection using thermal (plantar test) and mechanociceptive tests (von Frey). The rats were divided into the following groups: (a) young rats infiltrated for the first time at 12 weeks of age and re-infiltrated at 15 and 17 weeks; (b) adult rats infiltrated for the first time at 28 weeks of age and re-infiltrated at 44 and 56 weeks; and (c) old rats infiltrated for the first time at 56 weeks of age and re-infiltrated at 72 weeks. The rats tested for the first time at 12 and 56 weeks of age showed hyperalgesia due to carrageenan infiltration at 3 h and 24 h after injection. This result showed that old rats maintain the same antialgesic response due to inflammation. However, when the injection was repeated in the three age groups, the latency to the thermal and mechanociceptive responses at 3 h is increased when compared to animals exposed for the first time to inflammation. The response to thermal and mechanociception in old rats is the same as in young animals as long as the nociceptive stimulus is not repeated. The repetition of the stimulus produces changes compatible with desensitization of the response and evidences the significance of algesic stimulus repetition in the same individual rather than the age of the individual.