The development of new anti-migraine treatments is limited by the difficulty inassessing migraine pain in laboratory animals. Depression of activity is one of the few diagnostic criteria formigraine that can be mimicked in rats. The goal of the present study was to test the hypothesis thatdepression of home cage wheel running is a reliable and clinically relevant method to assess migraine painin rats.
Adult female rats were implanted with a cannula to inject allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) onto the dura to induce migraine pain, as has been shown before. Rats recovered from implantation surgery for 8 days in cages containing a running wheel. Home cage wheel running was recorded 23 h a day. AITC and the migraine medication sumatriptan were administered in the hour prior to onset of the dark phase.
Administration of AITC caused a concentration-dependent decrease in wheel running that lasted 3 h. The duration and magnitude of AITC-induced depression of wheel running was consistent following three repeated injections spaced 48 h apart. Administration of sumatriptan attenuated AITC-induced depressionof wheel running when a large dose (1 mg/kg) was administered immediately following AITC administration. Wheel running patterns did not change when sumatriptan was given to naïve rats.
These data indicate that home cage wheel running is a sensitive, reliable, and clinically relevant method to assess migraine pain in the rat.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
4
8%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences
4
8%
Neuroscience
4
8%
Nursing and Health Professions
3
6%
Other
8
15%
Unknown
23
44%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 April 2026.
All research outputs
#9,966,934
of 32,718,554 outputs
Outputs from The Journal of Headache and Pain
#945
of 2,115 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#138,181
of 454,417 outputs
Outputs of similar age from The Journal of Headache and Pain
#17
of 30 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,718,554 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,115 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.1. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 54% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 454,417 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 30 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 40th percentile – i.e., 40% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
