The increased use of opioids in the treatment of chronic pain encourages the search for drugs with low abuse and tolerance potential but with potent analgesic activity. Opioid agonist-antagonists and partial agonists have less abuse potential than do mu opioid receptor agonists such as morphine, and have been used for many years for their analgesic affects. Recently they have been approved for ...

Introduction: Association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in mu opioid receptor gene and drug addiction has been shown in various studies. Here, we have evaluated the existence of polymorphisms in exon 3 of this gene in Iranian population and investigated the possible association between these mutations and opioid addiction.  Methods: 79 opioid-dependent subjects (55 males, 24...

There is a clear evidence that same psychoactive substance may cause various individual physiological reactions in same environmental conditions. Although there is a general attitude on equal liability to opioid addiction, latest genetic analysis findings imply there are certain quantifiable factors that could lead to elevated individual liability towards development of opioid addiction. The go...

This study introduces the Addiction Behaviors Checklist (ABC), which is a brief (20-item) instrument designed to track behaviors characteristic of addiction related to prescription opioid medications in chronic pain populations. Items are focused on observable behaviors noted both during and between clinic visits. One hundred thirty-six consecutive veterans in a multidisciplinary Veterans Affai...

The increasing number of opioid users among chronic pain patients, and opioid abusers among the general population, makes perioperative pain management challenging for health care professionals. Anesthesiologists, surgeons, and nurses should be familiar with some pharmacological phenomena which are typical of opioid users and abusers, such as tolerance, physical dependence, hyperalgesia, and ad...

BACKGROUND Chronic pain is implicated as a risk factor for illicit opioid use among patients with opioid addiction treated with methadone. However, there exists conflicting evidence that supports and refutes this claim. These discrepancies may stem from the large variability in pain measurement reported across studies. OBJECTIVES We aim to determine the clinical and demographic characteristic...

The problem of abuse of and addiction to opioid analgesics has emerged as a major issue for the United States in the past decade and has worsened over the past few years. The increases in abuse of these opioids appear to reflect, in part, changes in medication prescribing practices, changes in drug formulations as well as relatively easy access via the internet. Though the use of opioid analges...

BACKGROUND As we known, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) helps to prevent the relapse of drug addiction. However, the scientific basis of TCM remains unclear because of limitations of current reductionist approaches. We aimed to explore the possible mechanism of how ANKK1 TaqIA (A1/A2) [rs1800497(T/C)] affects the relapse of opioid addiction on the perspective of Chinese traditional medicine....

Opioid receptors, MORP, DORP and KORP, belong to the family A of G protein coupled receptors (GPCR), and have been found to modulate a large number of physiological functions, including mood, stress, appetite, nociception and immune responses. Exogenously applied opioid alkaloids produce analgesia, hedonia and addiction. Addiction is linked to alterations in function and responsiveness of all t...