Figure 6.

Pretreatment with riluzole (12 mg/kg i.p.) produced significant antinociceptive effects following hind paw injection of formalin. The percentage change in glutamate content of in vivo microdialysate from rat thoracic spinal cord was measured by reverse phase HPLC with fluorescence detection. Riluzole (•) significantly reduced the formalin‐induced increase in spinal glutamate both in the first phase (from 5 to 15 min following i.p. injection of riluzole) and in the second phase (from 20 to 60 min) after formalin injection (**p < 0.01), compared to sham‐injected animals (○). Riluzole also significantly reduced basal spinal glutamate levels throughout the testing period. Reprinted from [129], copyright (2007), with permission of John Wiley & Sons.