Effect of acetyl-L-carnitine on hypersensitivity in acute recurrent caerulein-induced pancreatitis and microglial activation along the brain’s pain circuitry
    
    
        Sabrina L McIlwrath, Marlene E Starr, Abigail E High, Hiroshi Saito, Karin N Westlund
    
    
        Sabrina L McIlwrath, Karin N Westlund, Research Service, New Mexico Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Albuquerque, NM 87108, United States
Marlene E Starr, Hiroshi Saito, Department of Surgery, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, United States
Abigail E High, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, United States
Karin N Westlund, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM 87131, United States
     
    
        Author contributions:  McIlwrath SL performed the animal experiments, data analysis, produced the figures, wrote the manuscript; Starr ME assisted with animal caerulein dosing and read the manuscript; High AE analyzed the microglial morphology in the brain sections; Saito H designed the study, read and edited this manuscript; Westlund KN designed the study, read and edited this manuscript; all authors discussed the results, commented on the manuscript, and approved the final version of the article.
Supported by United States Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Merit Grant, No. BX002695; and United States National Institute of Health, No. R01AG055359, No. R01GM126181 and No. R01NS39041-15.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement:  This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Kentucky (IACUC Protocol No. 2010-0736). The animal care facility of the University of Kentucky is accredited by AALAC.
Conflict-of-interest statement:  The authors have nothing to disclose. This communication does not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.
Data sharing statement:  No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement:  The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access:  This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: 
http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Corresponding author:  Sabrina L McIlwrath, PhD, Senior Scientist, Research Service, New Mexico Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, 1501 San Pedro SE, Albuquerque, NM 87108, United States. 
sabrina.mcilwrath@va.gov 
Received: September 11, 2020
Peer-review started:  September 11, 2020
First decision:  November 25, 2020
Revised: December 8, 2020
Accepted: January 15, 2021
Article in press:  January 15, 2021
Published online: March 7, 2021
Processing time: 172 Days and 11.8 Hours