A clinical laboratory model for direct assessment of medication-induced antihyperalgesia and subjective effects:...

Analgesic medications are often tested in clinical laboratory studies by observing their ability to reduce the pain produced by noxious stimuli presented to healthy skin. These medications may then be used clinically to reduce disease-related hyperalgesia. This article describes a clinical laboratory model useful for testing a medication's ability to reduce hyperalgesia in humans. Results demonstrate that ultraviolet (UV) light induces hyperalgesia, commonly prescribed analgesic medications reduce UV-induced hyperalgesia, and this UV-induced hyperalgesia model can be used to assess the time course of a medication's antihyperalgesia effects. Coupled with participant-rated measures of drug liking and mood, this model may prove useful for predicting the clinical efficacy and side-effect profile of novel analgesic medications in cost-efficient and statistically powerful laboratory studies.