Hot plate test

The hot plate test is a test of the pain response in animals, similar to the tail flick test. It is used in basic pain research and in testing the effectiveness of analgesics by observing the reaction to pain caused by heat.

It was proposed by Eddy and Leimbach in 1953. They used a behavioral model of nociception where behaviors such as jumping and hind paw-licking are elicited following a noxious thermal stimulus. Licking is a rapid response to painful thermal stimuli that is a direct indicator of nociceptive threshold. Jumping represents a more elaborated response, with a latency, and encompasses an emotional component of escaping.