dog osteoarthritis project

Osteoarthritis (OA) is very common cause of chronic pain in dogs. We currently assume that all dogs with OA suffer similarly from pain and show similar altered sensitivity to sensory stimuli such as heat and pressure. However, in people suffering from OA, different types of pain associated with different sensory sensitivities are recognized, and these distinct pain patterns are likely associated with different underlying changes in the sensory nervous system. Furthermore, these distinct pain patterns are likely to predict response to different analgesic drugs. We predict, given the similarity between the disease of OA in dogs and people, that we will be able to identify similar distinct pain patterns in dogs suffering from osteoarthritis.
We will study pet dogs with OA, recruited through liaison with veterinary surgeons. We will use a simple, validated experimental paradigm to determine underlying pain mechanisms in individual dogs and subsequently map the individual pain pattern or pain phenotype to allow us to link pain mechanism with clinical pain expression. These data support the publication "Alfaxalone anaesthesia facilitates electrophysiological recordings of nociceptive withdrawal reflexes in dogs (Canis familiaris" [PLoS One]