Pharmacological specificity of enhanced sensitivity to naltrexone in rats

Development of naltrexone supersensitivity during food-maintained responding enhances naltrexone's ability to reduce ethanol-maintained responding

BACKGROUND

Similar doses of the opiate antagonist naltrexone (NTX) reduce responding maintained by food and ethanol. In animals responding for food, repeated administration of NTX produces supersensitivity to NTX. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the factors that produce enhanced sensitivity to NTX during food-maintained responding also contribute to NTX's ability to reduce ethanol-maintained responding.

METHODS

Rats (n=12) were trained to lever press using food reinforcement. After responding stabilized, the rats were trained to respond for 10% ethanol. Before ethanol sessions, injections of 30 mg/kg NTX were given. Subsequently, weekly cumulative NTX dose-effect curves (1, 3, 10, 30, and 100 mg/kg), known to produce NTX supersensitivity, were determined during food-maintained responding in half the rats for 8 weeks while the other half of the rats received saline vehicle injections instead. To determine whether NTX supersensitivity would transfer to ethanol self-administration, ethanol-maintained responding was re-established and 30 mg/kg NTX was administered again.

RESULTS

Initially, 30 mg/kg NTX had little effect on ethanol-maintained responding. During food-maintained responding, supersensitivity developed in rats receiving weekly cumulative NTX injections. After development of supersensitivity, 30 mg/kg decreased ethanol-maintained responding. Naltrexone's potency to reduce ethanol-maintained responding was unchanged in rats that received only vehicle injections for 8 weeks.

CONCLUSION

The mechanisms that produce NTX supersensitivity during food-maintained responding may play a role in NTX's effect on ethanol consumption. Naltrexone's effect on responding for ethanol was much smaller than that reported in other studies. Further exploration may lead to techniques that maximize NTX's effect on ethanol while minimizing its effect on other behaviors.

Repeated experience with naloxone facilitates acute morphine withdrawal: potential role for conditioning processes in acute opioid dependence

Single injections with morphine can induce a state of acute opioid dependence in humans and animals, typically measured as precipitated withdrawal when an antagonist such as naloxone is administered 4-24 h after morphine. Repeated treatment with morphine at 24-h intervals can result in a progressive shift in potency of naloxone to produce such acute withdrawal signs, including suppression of operant responding for food reward. The current study characterized fully both morphine and naloxone dose-effect functions in an effort to establish the relative contributions of repeated morphine vs. repeated naloxone (Nal) experience to these potency shifts. Rats trained on an FR15 schedule for food received four vehicle or morphine injections (0.56-5.6 mg/kg sc), spaced 24 h apart. Four hours after each morphine pretreatment (Repeat Nal), or 4 h after the fourth and final morphine pretreatment only (Single Nal), a cumulative dose-effect function for naloxone-induced suppression of responding was determined. Vehicle-pretreated (Morphine Naive) rats showed little change in the naloxone dose effect function even after four cumulative dose-effect determinations. By contrast, a progressive increase in naloxone potency was observed following successive pretreatments with morphine under Repeat Nal conditions, and the magnitude of naloxone potency shift was morphine dose dependent. At a morphine dose of 5.6 mg/kg, repeated naloxone experience in the presence of morphine was not an absolute requirement to produce an increase in naloxone potency across days, but repeated naloxone could potentiate the magnitude of the observed shift, indicating both experience-independent and experience-dependent processes at work. At lower doses of morphine (1.0 and 3.3 mg/kg) no shift in naloxone potency was observed across days of morphine treatment in the absence of repeated naloxone experience (Single Nal conditions), indicating an increasing contribution of naloxone experience-dependent processes as dose of morphine was decreased. It is argued that these experience-dependent processes in the progressive shift of naloxone potency observed in the current study may reflect an important role of conditioning in the early development of opioid dependence.

Regulation of opioid receptors by opioid antagonists: implications for rapid opioid detoxification

Opioid receptor antagonists have long been used in the diagnosis of opioid dependence and in the treatment of both opioid overdose and addiction. More recently they have been used in rapid opioid detoxification, a technique which has generated much ethical and scientific controversy. Because of this, the present review aims to integrate and summarize the current state of knowledge on adaptational changes to opioid systems as a result of antagonist administration. It is generally accepted that chronic treatment with an opioid antagonist results in opioid receptor upregulation. However, the mechanism(s) underlying this resultant opioid supersensitivity remain unresolved. In addition, there is not yet consensus regarding whether changes in opioid receptor number are directly responsible for the functional changes observed after chronic opioid antagonist treatment. Moreover, changes in opioid receptor number and sensitivity to opioid agonists and antagonists after chronic opioid antagonist treatment are dependent on dosing regimes as well as the kinetic properties of the antagonist itself. The role of these variables is appraised critically given the implication that an opioid antagonist can enhance functional responses. For example, such responses are an important consideration in the use of opioids because of possible adverse outcomes, such as overdose, after cessation of administration. Based on the literature discussed in this review it is concluded that caution is essential in the use of opioid antagonists for rapid opioid detoxification.

Long-term sensitization to the behavioral effects of naltrexone is associated with regionally specific changes in the number of mu and delta opioid receptors in rat brain

Enhanced sensitivity to some of the behavioral effects of the opioid antagonist naltrexone (NTX) develops following once-weekly injections of cumulative doses of the drug. Rats treated with this regimen of NTX injections show enhanced sensitivity to the operant response rate decreasing effects of NTX and NTX-induced salivation. The enhanced sensitivity is long-lasting and appears to be produced through conditioning processes. We have conducted saturation binding assays to assess possible changes in the number and affinity of mu and delta opioid receptors in cortical, midbrain and hindbrain membrane preparations from Long-Evans rats treated once weekly for 8 weeks with cumulative doses of the drug (1, 3, 10, 30 and 100 mg/kg). 3H-DAMGO (0.5-21 nM) and 3H-pCl-DPDPE (0.04-4 nM) were used to characterize mu and delta receptors, respectively. NTX treatment had no effect on 3H-DAMGO binding in cortex, but decreased binding in midbrain and increased binding in hindbrain relative to saline-treated controls. Saturation analyses revealed that these differences reflected changes in the number, but not the affinity of mu receptors. NTX treatment also increased the amount of 3H-pCl-DPDPE bound to delta receptors in midbrain and hindbrain, but not in cortex. Again, these changes were due to changes in the number of receptors. Thus, chronic NTX differentially affects the number of mu and delta opioid receptors in various brain regions.

Naloxone pretreatment blocks acute morphine-induced sensitization to naltrexone

The present experiment was designed to examine whether the acute sensitization to naltrexone that is induced by a single dose of morphine could be blocked by pretreatment with naloxone. Food-deprived male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to respond for food on a multiple-trial fixed interval 3-min schedule. Reinforcement was contingent upon a response within a 10-s limited hold period following a fixed interval of 3 min. A trial consisted of three fixed intervals separated by a 10-min timeout period during which responses were not reinforced. The rate decreasing effects of the opioid antagonist naltrexone were determined by cumulative dosing. Pretreatment with morphine (3.0 mg/kg, SC) resulted in a 70-fold increase in sensitivity to the response rate decreasing effect of naltrexone compared with saline pretreatment. The increased sensitivity was dose-dependently blocked by naloxone administration 10 min before morphine. The blockade by naloxone was overcome by increasing the pretreatment dose of morphine to 10 mg/kg. The results provide further evidence that acute agonist-induced sensitization to the rate-reducing effects of naltrexone is mediated by opioid receptors.