BACKGROUND Morphine can inhibit inflammatory edema in experimental animals. The mechanisms and sites by which opioids exert this effect are still under debate. Since the spinal level is a site for modulation of the neurogenic component of inflammation, we investigated the effect of intrathecal (i.t.) administration of morphine, and the involvement of spinal nitric oxide (NO)/cyclic-guanosine mo...

Background: Opioids like morphine produce side effects ranging from nausea and vomiting, pruritus, over sedation, dizziness and urinary retention to respiratory depression. Particularly, on chronic administration, it leads to development of tolerance. Combining opioids with certain other drugs (adjuvant analgesics) like ketamine, which is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, not ...

A new method in differentiation of chiral molecules is reported based on the fluorescence quenching of functionalized CdS quantum dots (CdS-QDs) as nanosensor by differing in the chirality of functionalization species. The chemically functionalized CdS-QDs with strong yellow emission were prepared using chiral L-cysteine (L-Cyst) and D-cysteine (D-Cyst) molecules. Then, the functionalized CdS-Q...

Drug abuse and dependence have progressively become a dramatic problem in human societies. Since the exact mechanism(s) of the effect of related drugs in the brain has not been explored, therefore, this problem has not been resolved yet. Several lines of evidence indicated that nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in the process of drug dependence. The role of NO within the different regio...

BACKGROUND Chronic opium exposure leads to altered response to opioid compounds. The aim of this study was to assess the behavioral effects of opium tolerance on the analgesic effects of intrathecal lidocaine in rats. METHODS Twenty-four adult male Sprague Dawley rats with intrathecal (IT) catheters were divided into 3 groups of 8. The first group was morphine tolerant and received IT lidocai...

Teleost fish have a nociceptive system and likely perceive pain. This warrants the development of analgesic protocols both for experimental surgery and for various husbandry procedures. Morphine is the standard analgesic against which the efficacy of other analgesics is assessed, and is the analgesic that has been most used in fish. The aims of this study were to describe the pharmacokinetics o...

The initial aim of this study was to identify protein changes associated with long-term morphine treatment in a recombinant human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y clone (sc2) stably overexpressing the human mu-opioid (MOP) receptor. In MOP receptor-overexpressing sc2 cells, short-term morphine exposure was found to be much more potent and efficacious in inhibiting forskolin-elicited production of cAMP, an...

The purpose of this placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized study was to assess the effect of nebulized morphine on dyspnoea perceived at rest by patients with advanced disease. Seventeen hospital in-patients with disabling dyspnoea received isotonic saline or morphine via nebulization for 10 min through a mouthpiece, combined with oxygen via nasal prongs. On four consecutive days, they we...

Introduction: We investigated the role of ATP-sensitive potassium channels and L-type calcium channels in morphine-induced hyperalgesia after nociceptive sensitization. Methods: We used a hotplate apparatus to assess pain behavior in male NMRI mice. Nociceptive sensitization was induced by three days injection of morphine and five days of drug free. On day 9 of the schedule, pain behavior te...

Drug abuse and dependence have progressively become a dramatic problem in human societies. Since the exact mechanism(s) of the effect of related drugs in the brain has not been explored, therefore, this problem has not been resolved yet. Several lines of evidence indicated that nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in the process of drug dependence. The role of NO within the different regio...