Tolerance induced by morphine remains a major unresolved problem and significantly limits its clinical use. Recent evidences have indicated that dopamine D2 receptor (D2DR) is likely to be involved in morphine-induced antinociceptive tolerance. However, its exact effect and molecular mechanism remain unknown. In this study we examined the effect of D2DR on morphine antinociceptive tolerance in ...

Consumption of ethanol is a considerable risk factor for death in heroin overdose. We sought to determine whether a mildly intoxicating concentration of ethanol could alter morphine tolerance at the cellular level. In rat locus coeruleus (LC) neurons, tolerance to morphine was reversed by acute exposure of the brain slice to ethanol (20 mM). Tolerance to the opioid peptide [d-Ala(2),N-MePhe(4),...

The neuropeptide orphanin FQ/nociceptin (OFQ/N) has been shown to counteract several effects of endogenous and exogenous opioids, and it has been proposed as an opioid-modulating agent involved in the development of morphine tolerance and dependence. However, conflicting results have been obtained from animal models using different protocols to induce morphine tolerance. Here, we report that bo...

OBJECTIVE In this study, we aim to find out the role of microRNA-93-5p (miR-93) and Smad5 in morphine tolerance in mouse models of bone cancer pain (BCP). RESULTS At 7 days after injection of morphine, the PMWT showed no significant difference between the morphine model group and the saline model group (P < 0.05), suggesting that morphine tolerance had formed in the morphine model group. The ...

Repeated administration of opioids produces long-lasting changes in micro-opioid receptor (MOR) signaling that underlie behavioral changes such as tolerance. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways, including MAPK extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2), are modulated by opioids and are known to produce long-lasting changes in cell signaling. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that...

Analgesic tolerance to opioids has been described in both experimental and clinical conditions and may limit the clinical utility of these drugs. We have previously shown that systemic gabapentin (GBP), a non-opioid drug, prevents and reverses tolerance to systemic morphine in the rat. In this study, we investigated the effect of intrathecal GBP on spinal morphine tolerance. Studied rats were g...

The tolerance and dependence after chronic medication with morphine are thought to be representative models for studying the plasticity, including the remodeling of neuronal networks. To test the hypothesis that changes in neuronal plasticity observed in opioid tolerance or dependence are derived from increased activity of the anti-opioid nociceptin system, the effects of chronic treatments wit...

The present experiments examined the role of spinal proinflammatory cytokines [interleukin-1beta (IL-1)] and chemokines (fractalkine) in acute analgesia and in the development of analgesic tolerance, thermal hyperalgesia, and tactile allodynia in response to chronic intrathecal morphine. Chronic (5 d), but not acute (1 d), intrathecal morphine was associated with a rapid increase in proinflamma...

As a follow-up study to an earlier report that racemic fenfluramine can acutely potentiate the analgesic effects of morphine in humans, we investigated the effects of fenfluramine on the development of tolerance to morphine analgesia in rats. Antinociceptive effect, as measured by the tail-flick latency, was studied over 8 days in rats that received continuous i.v. infusion of 1) 22 mg/kg/day o...

Stress and chronic pain have been shown to prevent the development of tolerance to morphine analgesia, which appears to be related to neuroendocrine activity and alternation in neurochemicals. Also the involvement of nitric oxide (NO) has been implicated in tolerance to morphine analgesia. In our pervious study, we showed that co-administration of swim stress (ss) with chronic morphine, prevent...