background: opioid peptides and their receptors are present in the majority of body tissues including gastrointestinal tract.  heroin is one of the opioid derivatives that abuse increasingly today.  so far, there is no study on the effect of acute heroin administration on gastric acid and pepsin secretion.   objective:  to define the effect of the acute heroin consumption on basal and vagal-sti...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a morphine-conjugate vaccine (M-KLH) on the acquisition, maintenance, and reinstatement of heroin self-administration (HSA) in rats, and on heroin and metabolite distribution during heroin administration that approximated the self-administered dosing rate. Vaccination with M-KLH blocked heroin-primed reinstatement of heroin responding. Va...

background : magnetic resonance imaging (mri) offers higher diagnostic accuracy for brain lesions caused by heroin abuse compared to compute tomography (ct) scan. these lesions have a low signal on t1-weighted (t1w) images and a high signal on t2-weighted (t2w) and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (flair) images. this study aimed to evaluate the role of diffusion-weighted mri (dwi-mri) in he...

Heroin abuse has been a long-standing problem in the United States, especially in New York City, which is a major heroin trafficking center and home to the largest population of heroin addicts in the country. As a consequence, New York City is also the major center for methadone treatment. Over time, however, the heroin problem seems to have changed in terms of demographic characteristics of ab...

Long-term changes in glutamate transmission in the nucleus accumbens core (NAcore) contribute to the reinstatement of drug seeking after extinction of cocaine self-administration. Whether similar adaptations in glutamate transmission occur during heroin and cue-induced reinstatement of heroin seeking is unknown. After 2 weeks of heroin self-administration and 2 weeks of subsequent extinction tr...

Abstract Background The misuse of illicit substances is associated with increased morbidity and mortality; thus, substance abuse a global health concern. Arabian Gulf region considered crossing point consumer drugs. However, lack laboratory-based research has limited the scientific assessment drug in region. Thus, an up-to-date analytical representation situation warranted. Methods We investiga...

It is widely believed that opioid withdrawal symptoms contribute to relapse to opioid use, but relapse is highly probable in experienced users even after prolonged abstinence and during opioid maintenance therapy. We have found using an animal model of relapse, the reinstatement procedure, that the two events that reliably reinstate heroin-seeking behavior are reexposure to heroin, and brief ex...

BACKGROUND: Heroin injection is associated with health and social problems including hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission. Few studies have examined the circumstances surrounding initiation to heroin injecting, especially current users initiating others. The current study aimed to examine the age of first heroin use and injection; administration route of first heroin use; relationship to initia...

Environmental stimuli and conditioned cues associated with heroin can induce drug-seeking behavior, but how heroin lapse interacts with cues is unclear. Rats were trained to nose-poke for i.v. heroin for 14 days and then tested for heroin seeking after withdrawal from heroin self-administration. Heroin seeking induced by cues persisted over several weeks after withdrawal, and the responding was...