# Behavioral assessment of pain in rodents: advances from evoked responses to spontaneous states and multimodal approaches

## TL;DR

The paper reviews advances in rodent pain assessment, comparing traditional and modern methods to improve objectivity and translational value.

## Contribution

It introduces multimodal and AI-driven approaches to enhance pain measurement in preclinical research.

## Key findings

- Traditional pain assays often lack objectivity and sensitivity.
- Modern techniques using video, neural, and physiological data improve translational outcomes.
- Multimodal datasets and AI pipelines can better align preclinical and clinical pain research.

## Abstract

Pain is widely recognized as a leading global health problem that markedly diminishes quality of life. Although assessment lies at the core of pain medicine, robust quantification remains difficult. In preclinical research, commonly used behavioral assays often blur the distinction between spontaneous pain and stimulus-evoked responses. Here, we review recent advances, clarify the conceptual and operational boundaries between spontaneous and evoked pain, and provide a multidimensional comparison of major traditional behavioral paradigms. To address shortcomings in objectivity and reproducibility, we also summarize emerging evaluation strategies. Finally, leveraging bioinformatics and machine learning, we identify pain-associated metrics and propose building multimodal datasets and AI-driven feature-extraction pipelines to enhance the translational value of animal data for clinical pain research.

Created in BioRender. i, L. (2026) https://BioRender.com/ab5yjcf.Illustration comparing traditional and modern approaches to pain measurement in research. The left side shows traditional methods like thermal, mechanical, and chemical stimuli on mice, indicating flaws like observer bias and low sensitivity. The right side highlights modern techniques using video, neural, and physiological input modalities with improved outcomes, such as increased assay sensitivity and successful phase two trials. Includes graphics of equipment, mice, and data analysis. The overall theme suggests modernization leads to better cross-species alignment and fewer failures in drug approval processes.

Created in BioRender. i, L. (2026) https://BioRender.com/ab5yjcf.