Peripheral neuropathy is one of the most common, dose limiting, and long-lasting disabling adverse events of chemotherapy treatment. Unfortunately, no treatment has proven efficacy to prevent this adverse effect in patients or improve the nerve regeneration, once it is established. Experimental models, particularly using rats and mice, are useful to investigate the mechanisms related to axonal or neuronal degeneration and target loss of function induced by neurotoxic drugs, as well as to test new strategies to prevent the development of neuropathy and to improve functional restitution. Therefore, objective and reliable methods should be applied for the assessment of function and innervation in adequately designed in vivo studies of CIPN, taking into account the impact of age, sex and species/strains features. This review gives an overview of the most useful methods to assess sensory, motor and autonomic functions, electrophysiological and morphological tests in rodent models of peripheral neuropathy, focused on CIPN. We include as well a proposal of protocols that may improve the quality and comparability of studies undertaken in different laboratories. It is recommended to apply more than one functional method for each type of function, and to perform parallel morphological studies in the same targets and models.

中文翻译：

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在化学疗法的啮齿动物啮齿动物中进行体内研究的方法。

周围神经病变是化学疗法中最常见的剂量限制和长期致残的不良事件之一。不幸的是，一旦建立了任何治疗方法，就无法预防这种不良反应或改善神经再生的功效。实验模型，特别是使用大鼠和小鼠的模型，对于研究与轴突或神经元变性和神经毒性药物诱导的靶功能丧失有关的机制，以及测试防止神经病发展和改善功能恢复的新策略很有用。因此，在适当设计的CIPN体内研究中，应考虑年龄，性别和物种/菌株特征的影响，采用客观可靠的方法评估功能和神经支配能力。这篇综述概述了最有用的方法来评估感觉，运动和自主功能，周围神经病的啮齿动物模型中的电生理和形态学测试，重点是CIPN。我们还包括一项协议提案，可以提高在不同实验室中进行的研究的质量和可比性。建议对每种类型的功能应用不止一种功能方法，并在相同的目标和模型中进行并行的形态学研究。