RESEARCH ARTICLE


Infrared Thermography in Serotonin-Induced Itch Model in Rats



Yousef Jasemian*, 1, Parisa Gazerani2, Frederik Dagnaes-Hansen1
1 Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Aarhus University, Denmark
2 Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI), Department of Health science and Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark


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Creative Commons License
© 2012 Jasemian et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Building 1240, Wilhelm Meyers Allé 4, Aarhus University, 8000 Århus C, Denmark; Tel: +45 22567713; E-mail: yousef@jasemian.com


Abstract

The study validated the application of infrared thermography in a serotonin-induced itch model in rats since the only available method in animal models of itch is the count of scratching bouts. Twenty four adult Sprague-Dawley male rats were used in 3 experiments: 1) local vasomotor response induced by intradermal serotonin (10 μl) was evaluated against isotonic saline and Methysergide (10μl); 2) dose-temperature relation of intradermal serotonin with different concentrations (1%, 2%, 4%) at the site of injection was tested; 3) the local vasomotor responses in anaesthetized rats with no scratching reflex was investigated. Serotonin elicited significant scratching and lowered the local temperature at the site of injection. A negative dose-temperature relationship of serotonin was found by thermography. Vasoregulation at the site of serotonin injection took place in the absence of scratching reflexes. Thermography is a reliable, non-invasive, and objective method for assessment in serotonin-induced itch model in rat.

Keywords: Infrared thermography, rat, serotonin, scratching bouts, vasomotor response.