Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) can be activated by opioids such as morphine via opioid receptor, and their activations have been observed in synaptic plasticity, learning, memory and addiction. Long-term exposure to morphine may induce physical dependence, manifested as somatic withdrawal symptoms such as diarrhea, body weight loss, jumping and headshaking, when drug is deprived. Thou...

BACKGROUND Chronic use of opioids usually results in physical dependence. The underlying mechanisms for this dependence are still being evaluated. Transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) are important receptors of pain perception. Their role during opioid dependence has not been studied well. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of morphine-dependence on the expression...

Acute morphine withdrawal is considered to be the physical manifestation of dependence, emerging when morphine administration is stopped or after the administration of an opiate antagonist, such as naloxone. Gabapentin, which is an antiepileptic, agent, enhances the analgesic effect of morphine in healthy volunteers, but its effect on morphine dependence and withdrawal signs has not determined ...

objective(s):dependence and tolerance to opioid analgesics are major problems limiting their clinical application. a-terpineol is a monoterpenoid alcohol with neuroprotective effects which is found in several medicinal plants such as myrtus communis, laurus nobilis, and stachys byzantina. it has been shown that some of these medicinal plants such as s. byzantina attenuate dependence and toleran...

Individual differences in behavioral characteristics or initial responses to abused drugs had been recently demonstrated to have predictive value in the propensity of later abuse. The research described here was initiated to determine the initial response of rats to administration of morphine if the physiological response has predictive value for the propensity of the animals to later selfadmin...

objectives: dependence and tolerance are major restricting factors in the clinical use of opioid analgesics. in the present study, the effects of thymoquinone, the major constituent of nigella sativa seeds, on morphine dependence and tolerance were investigated in mice. materials and methods: male adult nmri mice were made tolerant and dependent by repeated injections of morphine (50, 50, and 7...

We investigated the effects of (R)-(-)-5-methyl-1-nicotinoyl-2-pyrazoline (MS-153), which is reported to accelerate glutamate uptake, on the development of morphine tolerance and physical dependence in mice. For the induction of morphine tolerance and dependence, mice were twice daily treated with morphine (10-45 mg/kg, s.c.) for 5 days. First, co-administration of MS-153 (12.5 mg/kg, s.c.) did...

Previous studies from our laboratory and others have implicated a critical role of Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) in opioid tolerance and dependence. Translational research targeting the CaMKII pathway is challenging, if not impossible, because of a lack of selective inhibitors. We discovered in a preliminary study that haloperidol, a butyrophenone antipsychotic drug, in...

Statins, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl co-enzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors, are widely used in the management of different diseases beyond their primary indication for lowering cholesterol. Previous studies have demonstrated the neuroprotective effects of simvastatin in different animal models. In the present study, we examined the effects of simvastatin (30, 60, 100 and 300mg/kg, p.o.) on ...

objectivethis study was initiated to investigate the effect of portulaca oleraceae on morphine dependence in mice.materials and methodsdependence was induced using the subcutaneous injections of morphine for 3 days. on the day 4, morphineinjected 2 h prior to intraperitoneal injection of naloxone. the plant extracts ethanolic or aqueousadministered 0.5 h before the final dose of morphine. the n...