Anesthesia and analgesia for experimental craniotomy in mice and rats: a systematic scoping review

We will conduct a systematic scoping review to provide an overview of the anesthetic and analgesic management of craniotomy-associated pain in laboratory mice and rats, identifying the current state, trends and improvements of the respective pain management strategies over the past two decades. We will focus on the specific pharmacological pre-, peri- and postoperative treatments (monotherapy versus multimodal approaches), on the non-pharmacological refinement measures, and on the application of post-surgical pain assessment tools. Thus, this scoping review aims to obtain information about current practices and to provide a basis for recommendations for multimodal pain management approaches for craniotomy in laboratory mice and rats.