2022 Refinement Grant: Intraoperative nociception in animals: time to address and manage the issue efficaciously

During general anaesthesia, the brain does not perceive pain, but the spinal cord could still encode and elaborate the stimulus (nociception). Not recognising nociception is detrimental during general anaesthesia and can play a pivotal  role in the development of post-operative and chronic pain. We propose the use of an objective method i.e. tracking of the nociceptive withdrawal thresholds as mean to evaluate nociception in animals undergoing general anaesthesia.
Animals monitored with this method are expected to receive a more tailored and effective analgesia during surgical procedures and therefore to have a pain-free recovery and high quality of post-surgical life.