In this study, a new behavioral assessment of craniofacial muscle pain in the lightly anesthetized rat is described. Intramuscular injections with algesic agents in lightly anesthetized rats evoked a characteristic ipsilateral hindpaw shaking behavior for several minutes similar to previously described orofacial pain-induced grooming behavior in awake rats (Neurosci Lett 103 (1989) 349, Pain 62 (1995) 295). Eighty-two male Sprague-Dawley rats were used in a series of experiments to study whether this behavior could serve as a valid measure of craniofacial muscle pain. First, we demonstrated that different algesic chemicals, mustard oil (20%), formalin (3%) or hypertonic saline (5%) injected in the mid-region of the masseter muscle effectively elicited the hindpaw shaking behavior. The behavior was only minimally evoked with vehicle injection. Repeated administrations of hypertonic saline, a short duration non-sensitizing algogen, demonstrated reproducibility of the assay. Second, we showed that the peak and overall magnitude of the shaking behavior evoked by injections with different concentrations of mustard oil (1 and 5%) changed in a concentration dependent manner. Finally, we showed that systemic administration of morphine sulfate (3 and 0.3 mg/kg, i.p.) dose dependently attenuated mustard oil induced hindpaw-shaking behavior. Lidocaine injected locally 5 min prior to mustard oil injection also significantly decreased the hindpaw shaking behavior. Based on these results we concluded that ipsilateral hindpaw shaking in lightly anesthetized rats is a stereotypical behavior evoked by noxious muscle stimulation and can be used as a reliable behavioral measure to assess craniofacial muscle pain.