Restraint was applied by placing the animal in 25 ×7 cm plastic bottle with a 1-cm hole at the far end for breathing (Ely et al., 1997 with modifications). The animal was unable to move. The control group was not subjected to restraint. These procedures were always performed between 08:00 h and 09:00 h. Restraint sessions continued

during the selleck kinase inhibitor behavioral test period and during tDCS sessions, which were carried out in the afternoon. The animals were divided into four groups (n=12–13): control (C), stress (S), stress+sham tDCS (SS) and stress+tDCS (SN). After 11 weeks of chronic stress exposure, behavioral tests were performed in the afternoon. Mechanical allodynia was assessed before, immediately and 24 h after the end of tDCS treatment using an automatic von Frey esthesiometer (Insight, São

Paulo, Brazil). This is an adaptation of the classical von Frey filaments test in which pressure intensity is recorded automatically after paw removal (Vivancos et al., 2004). It has been proposed that tactile hypersensitivity is likely to be the consequence of a change in function and a phenotypic switch in primary afferent neurons innervating the inflamed tissue and the pattern of excitation they produce in spinal neurons. This assumption was partially confirmed by the finding that a subpopulation of A beta primary afferent neurons came to express substance P after conditioning inflammation, thereby enhancing synaptic transmission in the spinal Epigenetics Compound Library ic50 cord and exaggerating the central response to innocuous stimuli (Ma and Woolf, 1996 and Neumann et al., 1996). Rats were placed in 12×20×17 cm polypropylene cages with wire grid floors and acclimatized for 15 min, 24 h prior to the test, as the novelty of the apparatus itself can induce antinociception

(Netto et al., 2004). For testing, a polypropylene tip was placed perpendicularly underneath the mesh floor and applied to one of the five distal footpads with a gradual increase in pressure. cAMP A tilted mirror below the grid provided a clear view of the animal’s hind paw. The test consisted of poking the hind paw to provoke a flexion reflex followed by a clear flinch response after paw withdrawal. The intensity of the stimulus was automatically recorded when the paw was withdrawn. Three successive von Frey readings were averaged, and these averages were used as the final measurements. The paw withdrawal threshold was expressed in grams (g) (Vivancos et al., 2004). The hot plate test was carried out to assess the effects of tDCS on the thermal nociceptive threshold (Woolfe and Macdonald, 1944). This test was assessed before, immediately and 24 h after the end of tDCS treatment. We used the hot-plate test to determine changes in latency as an indicator of modifications of the supraspinal pain process (Ossipov et al., 1995), as licking or jumping responses during this test are considered to be the result of supraspinal sensory integration (Caggiula et al., 1995 and Rubinstein et al.