A Laboratory Model For Clinical Pain
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Bennett and Xie recognized the characteristic guarding action of a causalgia or RSD patient. Excitedly, they tested various non-painful and mildly painful stimuli on the rat's paw and found hyperalgesia and allodynia responses similar to those observed in patients. And, although the rat continued to eat, sleep and groom normally, the continued guarding behavior was evidence of some spontaneous pain.
Looking for human subjects to compare observations, Bennett consulted with Max and his colleagues at the Clinical Center , who were interested, but were not working with these disorders. He found the patients he needed at a clinic in Philadelphia, and, with their cooperation, began a series of comparison tests. As Bennett describes these studies, "It got to the point where we were doing so many things so rapidly to these patients that we started videotaping it, because things were happening very quickly....And some of these wonderful patients would come back two, three, four times for us; these people demonstrated courage, real courage." 1
This was the beginning of a close and exciting collaboration between Bennett in the lab and Max and Gracely in the clinic, comparing and discussing their observations.
Mitchell Max on the CCI model collaboration:
“Prior to this, the clinical work had been kind of isolated….now every month, the basic scientists had a new animal observation [to be verified in patients]; it was a very exciting time.” 2
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References
- Oral history interview with Gary Bennett, 1999. Tapes and transcript to be deposited in the NIH History Office and the John C. Liebeskind History of Pain Collection, UCLA.
- Oral history interview with Mitchell Max, 1999.