ArticleMolecular pain
A deep neural network to assess spontaneous pain from mouse facial expressions.
Article in Molecular pain. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 88 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 171 citations in OpenAlex.
- Rodent Animal Models of Endometriosis-Associated Pain: Unmet Needs and Resources Available for Improving Translational Research in Endometriosis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Grimace scale, burrowing, and nest building for the assessment of post-surgical pain in mice and rats-A systematic review.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Pooled it
- Artificial intelligence-based automated scoring of the mouse grimace scale: a systematic review.Pain reports · 2026Review
- Article
- From bench to bedside: relevant animal models across the migraine attack phases.The journal of headache and pain · 2026Review
- GrimACE: automated, multimodal cage-side assessment of pain and well-being in mice.Lab animal · 2026Article
- Research on improved models for facial expression recognition in mice with abnormal glucose metabolism.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Cannabinoid efficacy for pain: dose, chronicity and route.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Behavioral assessment of pain in rodents: advances from evoked responses to spontaneous states and multimodal approaches.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Evaluating the analgesic effect of metamizole in the mouse model for DSS-induced acute colitis.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Article
- Cracking the Valence Code: Patterned Facial Kinematics and Neural Signatures of Emotional Expressions in Mice.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Spreading depolarization as a therapeutic target in migraine.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2025Review
- Arrestin-biased allosteric modulator of neurotensin receptor 1 alleviates acute and chronic pain.Cell · 2025Article
- Article
- Inferring internal states across mice and monkeys using facial features.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Enhanced facial grimacing when laparotomy involves cutaneous and visceral tissue injury.Pain reports · 2025Article
- Comparison between AI and human expert performance in acute pain assessment in sheep.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Faces of time: a historical overview of rapid innovations in coding animal facial signals.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2025Review
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Grimace scales quantify characteristic facial expressions associated with spontaneous pain in rodents and other mammals. However, these scales have not been widely adopted largely because of the time and effort required for highly trained humans to manually score the images. Convoluted neural networks were recently developed that distinguish individual humans and objects in images. Here, we trained one of these networks, the InceptionV3 convolutional neural net, with a large set of human-scored mouse images. Output consists of a binary pain/no-pain assessment and a confidence score. Our automated Mouse Grimace Scale integrates these two outputs and is highly accurate (94%) at assessing the presence of pain in mice across different experimental assays. In addition, we used a novel set of "pain" and "no pain" images to show that automated Mouse Grimace Scale scores are highly correlated with human scores (Pearson's r = 0.75). Moreover, the automated Mouse Grimace Scale classified a greater proportion of images as "pain" following laparotomy surgery when compared to animals receiving a sham surgery or a post-surgical analgesic. Together, these findings suggest that the automated Mouse Grimace Scale can eliminate the need for tedious human scoring of images and provide an objective and rapid way to quantify spontaneous pain and pain relief in mice.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.