A specialized cubic-millimeter hotspot in the rostrodorsal quadrant of medial shell in nucleus accumbens (NAc) of rats may mediate opioid enhancement of gustatory hedonic impact or "liking". Here, we selectively stimulated the three major subtypes of opioid receptors via agonist microinjections [mu (DAMGO), delta (DPDPE), or kappa (U50488H)] and constructed anatomical maps for functional locali...

Opioid receptors are the sites of action for morphine and the other opioid drugs. Abundant evidence now demonstrates that different opioid receptor types can physically associate to form heteromers. Understandings of the nature, behavior, and role of these opioid receptor heteromers are developing. Owing to their constituent monomers' involvement in analgesia, mu/delta opioid receptor (M/DOR) h...

Recent evidence indicates that agonist ligands of G protein coupled receptors (GPCR) can activate different signaling systems. Such "agonist-directed" signaling also occurs with opioid receptors. Previous work from our laboratory showed that chronic morphine, but not DAMGO, up-regulates the expression of Galpha12 and that both morphine and DAMGO decreased Galphai3 expression in CHO cells expres...

Background: Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are instrumental in controlling opioid misuse,but opioid users have increasingly shifted to cocaine, creating a different set of medical problems. Whileopioid use results in multiple medical comorbidities, findings of the existing studies reported singlecomorbidities rather...

the parafascicular nucleus (pfn) of thalamus, as a supraspinal structure, has an important role in processing of nociceptive information. in addition, μ-opioid receptor contributes to supraspinal modulation of nociception. in the present study, the effects of microinjection of naloxone (a non-specific opioid-receptor antagonist) and naloxonazine (a specific μ-opioid receptor antagonist) were in...

ôbjective: to assess the prevalence of opioid abuse in a sample of male population in shiraz, ïran. methods: â representative sample of 1219 subjects (aged 16 years or older) who were referred for urine opioid screen (üôs) as a mandatory test before marriage in shiraz in 2005 were enrolled in this study. results: mean age of the participants was 26.17 years (sd=6.12), ranging from 16 to 75 year...

One of the most important functions of the opioid system is the control of pain. Among the three main opioid receptor classes (μ, δ, κ), the μ (MOR) is the main type targeted for pharmacotherapy of pain. Opioid analgesics such as morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl are agonists at the MOR and are the mainstay for the treatment of moderate-to-severe pain. However, adverse effects related to opioid ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The study's objective was to identify patients at risk for ineffective pain management using patient-specific opioid prescription data. METHODS We conducted a retrospective review of payer opioid prescription data and patient charts from a rural family medicine group with a residency program. Sixty-one patients were identified who had received three or more prescript...