Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 2022, 10, 114-123 https://www.scirp.org/journal/jbm ISSN Online: 2327-509X ISSN Print: 2327-5081 DOI: 10.4236/jbm.2022.103012 Mar. 14, 2022 114 Journal of Biosciences and Medicines Effect of Pregabalin and Gabapentin on Nociceptive Behaviors Induced by Spinal Nerve Ligation Itzel I. Ramos-Rodríguez 1 , Crystell G. Guzmán Priego 1* , Erick J. Rodríguez-Palma 2 , Guadalupe del C. Baeza-Flores 1 , Jorge E. Torres-López 1 1 Pain Mechanisms Laboratory, División Académica de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Juárez Autó noma de Tabasco, Villahermosa, Mexico 2 Neurobiology of Pain Laboratory, Departamento de Farmacobiología, Neurobiology of Pain, Departamento de Farmacobiología, Cinvestav, Sede Sur, México City, México Abstract Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience, associated with actual or potential tissue damage. According to its neurobiological me- chanism, pain is classified into nociceptive, inflammatory, dysfunctional, and neuropathic. Neuropathic pain (NP) is caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system. Both pregabalin and gabapentin are pharma- ceuticals used as validation drugs in experimental models of NP. Pregabalin was shown to produce significant antihyperalgesic and antiallodynic effects. Gabapentin is used as a reference compound for new analgesics and reduces tactile allodynia in rats. The aim of this work is to evaluate pregabalin and gabapentin effects on nociceptive behaviors induced by spinal nerve ligation (SNL). Female Wistar rats of 140 - 160 g were used, divided into five groups: Naive, SHAM, SNL rats treated with saline solution, SNL rats treated with pregabalin 30 mg/kg p.o., SNL rats treated with gabapentin 300 mg/kg p.o. Nociceptive behaviors were determined by the up and down method. In the establishment of SNL-induced allodynic behavior, a reduction in paw with- drawal threshold was observed in the time course, which was present from day 1 and it was maintained for 28 days post-ligation. With the administra- tion of pregabalin and gabapentin, anti-allodynic behavior was observed in the time course and in the areas under the curve (AUC) of the time course of anti-allodynic behavior, significant difference was observed between pregaba- lin, and gabapentin groups compared to vehicle with a value of p < 0.0001. The results showed pregabalin and gabapentin induce an antinociceptive ef- fect in rats subjected to SNL. How to cite this paper: Ramos-Rodríguez, I.I., Priego, C.G.G., Rodríguez-Palma, E.J., Baeza-Flores, G. del C. and Torres-López, J.E. (2022) Effect of Pregabalin and Gaba- pentin on Nociceptive Behaviors Induced by Spinal Nerve Ligation. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 10, 114-123. https://doi.org/10.4236/jbm.2022.103012 Received: February 8, 2022 Accepted: March 11, 2022 Published: March 14, 2022 Copyright © 2022 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access