Environmental enrichment alleviates chronic pain in rats following a spared nerve injury to induce neuropathic pain. A preliminary study

BACKGROUND: In mice, chronic pain can be alleviated with enriched environments (EEs). The purpose of this preliminary study is to investigate whether pain behaviors in rats with peripheral neuropathy would be altered when keeping these animals in either 1) standard laboratory cages or in 2) a significantly EE. METHODS: Two groups of rats (n=8/group) underwent a spare nerve injury surgery of the right hind leg; one group (n=8) was returned to standard ventilated cages (2 rats/cage), the other (n=8) placed in an EE (8 rats/ferret cage with toys). A third group (n=8) underwent a sham surgery and was used as control. These animals were returned to standard ventilated cages (2 rats per cage). Spare nerve injury surgery consisted of ligation/transection of the tibial and common peroneal branches of the sciatic nerve of the right leg only. Von Frey Filaments were applied to test mechanical sensitivity of both hind paws. RESULTS: The right paw of nerve-injured animals was hypersensitive to mechanical stimuli at 2, 4, and 8 weeks following the surgery; however, animals in the EE conditions showed significantly (P<0.05) less mechanical sensitivity than rats left in the standard caging environment (2, 4, and 8 weeks postsurgery: standard environment 2.8±0.5, 2.8±0.7, and 2.6±0.4 and EE 4.7±0.6, 5.8±0.5, and 5.5±0.7). Sham animals were unaffected by the surgery. CONCLUSION: Environmental enrichment alleviated mechanically induced chronic pain in a spared nerve injury rat model of neuropathic pain. Findings also suggest that environmental enrichment, as a method to alleviate pain, may be species-specific, motor behaviors being a very important parameter when considering pain modulation.