The striatum is believed to be a crucial brain region associated with drug reward. Adaptive alteration of neurochemistry in this area might be one potential mechanism underlying drug dependence. It has been proposed that the dysfunction of Na+,K+-ATPase function is involved in morphine tolerance and dependence. The present study, therefore, was undertaken to study the adaptation of the striatal...

Enkephalin, a brain peptide with morphine-like activities, is rapidly inactivated by a membrane-associated aminopeptidase present in brain. Evidence presented here suggests that enkephalin binding to opiate receptors is coupled to subsequent aminopeptidase degradation. This conclusion is based upon the following observations. 1) Enkephalin degradation, at concentrations 4 orders of magnitude be...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether berberine (BER) administration could attenuate depression- and anxiety-like behaviors and increase corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression following chronic morphine withdrawal in rats. Male rats were exposed to chronic, intermittent, escalating morphine (10~50 mg/kg) for 10 days. After the last morphine in...

Background: Morphine is wildly used as a painkiller in clinics, but causes several side effects such as hyperalgesia, depression and more notably amnesia. Here, we assumed that insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) as a peptide with widespread distribution of receptors in brain regions, especially hippocampus, might be capable to alleviate morphine-induced amnesia. Meth...

conclusions this study showed that, compared to simply increasing the dose of morphine, adding chloropromazine, promethazine, midazolam, and clinidine to morphine significantly controlled pain scores and increased treatment satisfaction in addicted patients without notable side effects. objectives the objective of this study was to evaluate the analgesic effects of adding clonidine, promethazin...

Rats were trained to discriminate 4-h pretreatment with 10 mg/kg morphine and 15-min pretreatment with 0.3 mg/kg naltrexone (morphine-->naltrexone) from pretreatment with saline and 0.3 mg/kg naltrexone (saline-->naltrexone). The discrimination seems to derive from interoceptive stimuli from antagonist-precipitated withdrawal from acute morphine dependence. The purpose of this study was to exte...