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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Burn Injury-Induced Pain and Depression-Like Behavior in Mice
Published on: September 29, 2021
Proinflammatory cytokines mediating burn-injury pain
Gretchen J Summer1, Edgar Alfonso Romero-Sandoval, Oliver Bogen
1Department of Physiological Nursing, School of Nursing, University of California, C-555/P.O. Box 0440 521, Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco (UCSF), CA 94143, USA. gretchen.summer@ucsf.edu
Abstract:
Thermal burns induce pain at the site of injury, mechanical hyperalgesia, associated with a complex time-dependent inflammatory response. To determine the contribution of inflammatory mediators to burn injury-induced mechanical hyperalgesia, we measured dynamic changes in the levels of three potent hyperalgesic cytokines, interleukin IL-1 beta, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha), in skin of the rat, following a partial-thickness burn injury. Only IL-6 demonstrated a sustained increase ipsilateral but not contralateral to the burn, correlating with the prolonged ipsilateral mechanical hyperalgesia. Spinal intrathecal injection of oligodeoxynucleotides antisense for gp130, a receptor subunit shared by members of the IL-6 family of cytokines, attenuated both burn- and intradermal IL-6-induced hyperalgesia, as did intradermal injection of anti-IL-6 function blocking antibodies. These studies suggest that IL-6 is an important mediator of burn-injury pain.
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