Gabapentin is a useful agent for the relief of trigeminal neuralgia and orofacial phantom pain. However, there is scarce information on the gabapentin analgesic effect in orofacial pain models. We tested the analgesic action of gabapentin on the formalin-induced face grooming in the rat, an orofacial pain paradigm. IP Gabapentin (10 mg/kg), induced a drastic reduction in face grooming during phase I and II, indicating a clear-cut antinociceptive effect. However, at 1 mg/kg, gabapentin had an analgesic effect only on phase I. D-serine (100 microg, ICV) was silent when given alone and did not antagonize the antinociceptive effect of gabapentin. On the contrary, gabapentin 1 mg/kg plus D-serine significantly reduced face grooming in phase II. These results show a difference between gabapentin induced orofacial analgesia and previous studies showing gabapentin-induced hind paw analgesia in the formalin test, only during phase II, as well as D-serine antagonism of gabapentin. The results are discussed in terms of different pain processing of hind paw, versus orofacial nociceptive stimulation.