CHRONIC OROFACIAL PAIN INFLUENCES SELF-REGULATION IN A RODENT MODEL

OF THESIS CHRONIC OROFACIAL PAIN INFLUENCES SELF-REGULATION IN A RODENT MODEL Self-regulation is the capacity to exert control over cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology. Since chronic pain interferes with the ability to self-regulate, the primary goal of this study was to examine, in rodents, the effects of chronic pain on selfregulation processes. Sixteen male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into two groups: (1) chronic constriction injury of the infraorbital nerve (CCI-ION) and (2) naive. Testing confirmed that CCI-ION animals had significant mechanical allodynia compared to naive animals (p<0.001). A two-part self-regulation behavioral paradigm consisting of a cued go/no-go task and a subsequent persistence task was developed based on human paradigms. In the cued task, both groups made fewer incorrect lever presses in postsurgery trials (p<0.001); naive animals had a greater decrease in number of incorrect presses than CCI-ION animals (p=0.06). Similarly, both groups had a larger correct to total lever presses ratio in post-surgery trials (p<0.001); naive animals had a greater increase than CCI-ION animals (p=0.06). In the persistence task, naive animals experienced a greater decrease in lever presses (p=0.08) than did CCI-ION animals (p=0.66). These results suggest that animals experiencing chronic pain were not able to learn as well as naive animals, and may have difficulty responding to novel environmental demands.