Fig. 4

Preemptive bupivacaine attenuates acetone-induced cold allodynia. The number of shakes and/or licking episodes of the hindpaw following acetate application is reported as a measure of nocifensive behavior to a cold stimulus. Acetone applied to the ipsilateral (a) and contralateral (b) hindpaw. Responses were recorded prior to and 3, 7, 10, 14 and 21 days following bupivacaine (n = 8) or saline (n = 8) treatment prior to spinal nerve ligation. A sham (n = 5) group was also tested. Asterisks denote significant main effect of treatment detected by two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s posthoc analysis. * denotes significance from saline treated at p < 0.05; # denotes significance from baseline at p < 0.05