Opioid dose escalation or analgesic tolerance is observed during longer treatments in a significant number of patients with chronic pain owing to cancer or nonmalignant tissue injury. Higher doses of morphine are more likely to result in subsensitivity to the drug and worsened quality of life (QOL) by exerting other side effects. Many investigators have been studying the molecular and cellular ...

Opioid receptor agonists are effective for treating pain; however, tolerance and dependence can develop with repeated use. Combining opioids with cannabinoids can enhance their analgesic potency, although it is less clear whether combined treatment alters opioid tolerance and dependence. In this study, four monkeys received 3.2 mg/kg morphine alone or in combination with 1 mg/kg Δ(9)-tetrahydro...

Single injections of morphine induce a state of acute opioid dependence in humans and animals, measured as precipitated withdrawal when an antagonist is administered 4-24 h after morphine. Additional morphine exposure at daily or weekly intervals results in further increases in withdrawal severity, suggesting that acute opioid dependence reflects the early stages in the development of a chronic...

BACKGROUND Opioid use is a significant problem in Alaska. Medication-assisted treatment for opioid use, including buprenorphine, reduces withdrawal symptoms and the harm associated with opioid abuse. Understanding consumers' treatment-seeking process is important for addressing barriers to treatment, facilitating effective service utilization, and informing policy. METHODS To understand treat...

Prenatal opioid agonist therapy with methadone or buprenorphine prevents maternal illicit opioid use and withdrawal and improves pregnancy outcomes compared to heroin use alone. Historically, methadone has been the first-line opioid agonist therapy for pregnant opioid dependent women; in recent years buprenorphine has become first-line treatment for some opioid dependent pregnant women. While t...

CONTEXT Rapid opioid detoxification with opioid antagonist induction using general anesthesia has emerged as an expensive, potentially dangerous, unproven approach to treat opioid dependence. OBJECTIVE To determine how anesthesia-assisted detoxification with rapid antagonist induction for heroin dependence compared with 2 alternative detoxification and antagonist induction methods. DESIGN, ...

background: herbal medical compounds and their major constituent have been used in the management and treatment of opioid withdrawal syndrome and pain. this study was carried out to clarify the effect of curcumin, the major compound of turmeric, on morphine withdrawal syndrome in mouse model and its possible mechanisms of pain relieving activity by assessing in writhing test as a model of visce...

introduction: it has been shown that orexin peptides have a role in opioid withdrawal behaviors. orexin-expressing neurons that are present in the hypothalamic nuclei send dense projections to the locus coeruleus (lc). withdrawal syndrome is temporally associated with hyperactivity of lc neurons. however, lc neurons do not show withdrawalinduced hyperactivity in the brain slices from morphine-d...

Correspondence: Shailendra Kapoor 2300 E Cary Street, Richmond, VA 23223, USA Email [email protected] To the editor I read with great interest the paper by Jin et al in a recent issue of your journal. The article is highly thought-provoking. Interestingly, the past few years have also seen the emergence of nitric oxide synthetase inhibitors, especially 7-nitroindazole, as novel new age...