Abstract
Periodontal disease (PD) is an infectious-inflammatory oral disease that is highly prevalent among adolescence and adulthood and can lead to chronic orofacial pain and be associated with anxiety, stress and depression. This study aimed to identify anxiety-like behaviors in the ligature-induced murine preclinical model of PD in different phases of the disease (i.e., acute vs. chronic). Also, we investigated orofacial mechanical allodynia thresholds and superficial cortical plasticity along the orofacial motor cortex in both disease phases. To this aim, 25 male Wistar rats were randomly allocated in acute (14 days) or chronic (28 days) ligature-induced-PD groups and further divided into active-PD or sham-PD. Anxiety-like behavior was evaluated using the elevated plus maze, mechanical allodynia assessed using the von Frey filaments test and superficial motor cortex mapping was performed with electrical transdural stimulation. We observed increased anxiety-like behavior in active-PD animals in the acute phase, characterized by decreased number of entries into the open arm extremities [t(1,7) = 2.42, p = 0.04], and reduced time spent in the open arms [t(1,7) = 3.56, p = 0.01] and in the open arm extremities [t(1,7) = 2.75, p = 0.03]. There was also a reduction in the mechanical allodynia threshold in all active-PD animals [Acute: t(1,7) = 8.81, p < 0.001; Chronic: t(1,6) = 60.0, p < 0.001], that was positively correlated with anxiety-like behaviors in the acute group. No differences were observed in motor cortex mapping. Thus, our findings show the presence of anxiety-like behaviors in the acute phase of PD making this a suitable model to study the impact of anxiety in treatment response and treatment efficacy.
Highlights
Periodontal disease (PD) is a highly prevalent chronic, infectiousinflammatory oral disease, responsible for early tooth loss, gingival bleeding and pain [1,2,3]
There was a reduction in the mechanical allodynia threshold in the activePD groups compared to the shamPD groups at endpoint [Acute: t(1,7) = 8.81, p < 0.001; Chronic: t(1,6) = 60, p < 0.001; Figure 2B]
The elevated plus maze (EPM) test showed an increase in anxiety-like behaviors in the activePD animals in the Acute group compared to shamPD animals of the same group
Summary
Periodontal disease (PD) is a highly prevalent chronic, infectiousinflammatory oral disease, responsible for early tooth loss, gingival bleeding and pain [1,2,3]. It estimated that PD affects 20– 50% of the global population, including adolescents, adults and seniors [4]. Increased anxiety-like behaviors have been reported in murine models of inflammatory pain [20] and trigeminal neuropathic pain [21], no study to date has evaluated the presence of anxietylike behaviors in distinct phases of PD (i.e., acute vs chronic)
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