Neutrophils infiltrate sensory ganglia and mediate chronic widespread pain in fibromyalgia, 2023, Sara Cavaria et al

You have to remember that animal models are always manipulated to just that point where any given influence will make a big difference on the data. Adjuvant arthritis in rats was designed so that almost any intervention would seem to reduce it - same for experimental allergic encephalomyelitis. You can all sorts of effects in these systems that might just about be traceable to some meaningful biology - in that system. But stand back and consider the meaningfulness in terms of a human disease with an unknown aetiology and it is zero.

I have worked alongside people who have made entire careers out of meaningless data in this area. Being critical of basic methodology is considered bad form.

 

[Jonathan] "stand back and consider the meaningfulness in terms of a human disease with an unknown aetiology and it is zero"

Or less clearly --- if you don't understand the underlying cause, and you simply replicate the symptom (by some means probably unrelated to the actual mechanism in humans) then what is value of the data - likely zero!
Seems to highlight the difficulty in interpreting symptoms and the need for GWAS --- might even get an animal model from that! --- [Jonathan] "Most recent progress in medical research has been in terms of DNA - where the machines do not make many mistakes."

 

A pain expert questioning one of the authors of this paper saying it 'doesn't make sense":
https://twitter.com/user/status/1648481460284948486

 

I have little trust in mouse models for pain when no one can clearly define or measure pain. If the mouse doesn't react the way your theory predicts, just change how you interpret observed effects until the results look good.

 

As the saying in the lab goes, "mice lie and monkeys exaggerate." Though I am grateful for any serious attention paid to my illness.

I have no background in the hypothesis and methodology of employing mice in this research topic or any other.

I am merely a human subject with FM who took NSAIDS for three months at the onset of tiny localized patches of pain, just prior to being diagnosed by a rheumy for "probable fibromyalgia."

The NSAIDs for three months did not prevent the ensuing onslaught of severe symptoms of pain, confusion, fatigue and sensitivity to light.

And NSAIDs are ineffective for pain in FM (unless one has co-occuring arthritis). They are not a recommended treatment.