Definition
The tail-flick test is a test of nociception used in rats and mice. The noxious stimulus is usually radiant heat on the tail or tail immersion in hot water, and the response is a flick of the tail. The outcome is the latency from the stimulus onset to the tail flick.
Introduction
The tail-flick test is an extensively used test of nociception in rats and mice (Le Bars et al. 2001), first described in 1941 (D’Amour and Smith 1941). In the standard method, radiant heat is focused on the tail, and the time it takes until the animal flicks the tail away from the beam is measured. This tail-flick latencyhas been regarded a measure of the nociceptive sensitivity of the animal and is prolonged for instance by opioid analgesics. A spinal transection above the lumbar level does not block the tail-flick response. Thus, the test relies on a spinal nociceptive reflex, and pain is not measured directly. Still, this is considered a very useful test of a component of “phasic pain,” both...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Benoist, J.-M., Pincedé, I., Ballantyne, K., Plaghki, L., & Le Bars, D. (2008). Peripheral and central determinants of a nociceptive reaction: An approach to psychophysics in the rat. PLoS One, 3, e3125.
Berge, O.-G., Garcia-Cabrera, I., & Hole, K. (1988). Response latencies in the tail-flick test depend on tail skin temperature. Neuroscience Letters, 86, 284–288.
Carstens, E., & Douglass, D. K. (1995). Midbrain suppression of limb withdrawal and tail-flick reflexes in the rat: Correlates with descending inhibition of sacral spinal neurons. Journal of Neurophysiology, 73, 2179–2194.
D’Amour, F. E., & Smith, D. L. (1941). A method for determining loss of pain sensation. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 72, 74–79.
Duggan, A. W., Griersmith, B. T., Headley, P. M., & Maher, J. B. (1978). The need to control skin temperature when using radiant heat in tests of analgesia. Experimental Neurology, 61, 471–478.
Eide, P. K., Berge, O.-G., Tjølsen, A., & Hole, K. (1988). Apparent hyperalgesia in the mouse tail-flick test due to increased tail skin temperature after lesioning of serotonergic pathways. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 134, 413–420.
Haws, C. M., Heinricher, M. M., & Fields, H. L. (1990). α−adrenergic receptor agonists, but not antagonists, alter the tail-flick latency when microinjected into the rostral ventromedial medulla of the lightly anesthetized rat. Brain Research, 533, 192–195.
Hole, K., & Tjølsen, A. (1993). The tail-flick and formalin tests in rodents: Changes in skin temperature as a confounding factor. Pain, 53, 247–254.
Le Bars, D., Gozariu, M., & Cadden, S. W. (2001). Animal models of nociception. Pharmacological Reviews, 53, 597–652.
Milne, R. J., & Gamble, G. D. (1989). Habituation to sham testing procedures modifies tail-flick latencies: Effects on nociception rather than vasomotor tone. Pain, 39, 103–107.
Pincedé, I., Pollin, B., Meert, T., Plaghki, L., & Le Bars, D. (2012). Psychophysics of a nociceptive test in the mouse: Ambient temperature as a key factor for variation. PLoS One, 7, e36699.
Ren, M. F., & Han, J. S. (1979). Rat tail-flick acupuncture analgesia model. Chinese Medical Journal, 92, 576–582.
Roane, D. S., Bounds, J. K., Ang, C.-Y., & Adloo, A. A. (1998). Quinpirole-induced alterations of tail temperature appear as hyperalgesia in the radiant heat tail-flick test. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 59, 77–82.
Sawamura, S., Tomioka, T., & Hanaoka, K. (2002). The importance of tail temperature monitoring during tail-flick test in evaluating the antinociceptive action of volatile anesthetics. Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica, 46, 451–454.
Tjølsen, A., & Hole, K. (1992). The effect of morphine on core and skin temperature in rats. NeuroReport, 3, 512–514.
Tjølsen, A., Lund, A., Berge, O.-G., & Hole, K. (1989). An improved method for tail-flick testing with adjustment for tail-skin temperature. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 26, 259–265.
Urban, M. O., & Smith, D. J. (1994). Nuclei within the rostral ventromedial medulla mediating morphine antinociception from the periaqueductal gray. Brain Research, 652, 9–16.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this entry
Cite this entry
Tjølsen, A., Hole, K. (2013). Tail-Flick Test. In: Gebhart, G.F., Schmidt, R.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Pain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_4375
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_4375
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-28752-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-28753-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences