Introduction:

Neuropathic pain occurs due to algogenic stimuli in the nervous system. The sciatic nerve constriction is one of the most popular models used to understand neuropathic pain in rats.

Objective:

Describe different techniques to measure neuropathic pain in rats.

Materials and methods:

The platforms of PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar were used to identify the way of measuring neuropathic pain in rats using the sciatic nerve constriction technique (Bennett technique) between 1988 and 2024. Boolean operators and medical subject headings terms were used to search papers including "neuropathic pain", "sciatic constriction", "rats", "measurement" and "evaluation." The inclusion criteria were: (1) studies in rats, (2) use of sciatic nerve constriction technique as production of neuropathic pain, (3) measurement of neuropathic pain in rats. Exclusion criteria were: (1) review articles and (2) articles in a language other than English, French, or Spanish, (3) incomplete or non-specific measurement articles.

Results:

Of 17,900 articles, a total of (n = 132) were selected in which neuropathic pain was measured in rats. The following percentages show the frequency of the forms of measurement used in the literature: (1) von Frey Filament Test: 99 (75%) of the articles, (2) hot stimuli: 80 (60.60%) of the items, (3) Cold score: 40 (30.30%) of the articles, (4) pin Pricking: 5 (3.78%) of the items, and (5) other forms of measurement: 41 (31.06%).

Conclusions:

There are multiple tests to measure pain and can be used in therapeutic studies to improve pain. The Von Frey Filament test is the most used technique to understand sensitive stimuli in constrictive sciatic neuropathic pain models in rats.

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