Hot plate test

The hot plate test is an assessment of pain behavior in rodents which is alike to the tail-flick test. The hot plate test is performed to evaluate the pain threshold and to examine the effectiveness of the analgesic by detecting the response to the heat produced pain. Eddy and Leimbach suggested the hot plate test in 1953 [31]. In this protocol, behaviors including jumping are induced after a noxious thermal stimulus. Jumping determines a more elaborated response, with latency, and contains an emotional component of escaping. The plate was surrounded by four Plexiglas walls. Consequently, the rat could not escape. The rat was removed from the plate rapidly after jumping or no response within 50 s.