Psychoactive compounds and audiogenic seizure susceptibility

Sleep deficiency and chronic pain: potential underlying mechanisms and clinical implications

Pain can be both a cause and a consequence of sleep deficiency. This bidirectional relationship between sleep and pain has important implications for clinical management of patients, but also for chronic pain prevention and public health more broadly. The review that follows will provide an overview of the neurobiological evidence of mechanisms thought to be involved in the modulation of pain by sleep deficiency, including the opioid, monoaminergic, orexinergic, immune, melatonin, and endocannabinoid systems; the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis; and adenosine and nitric oxide signaling. In addition, it will provide a broad overview of pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches for the management of chronic pain comorbid with sleep disturbances and for the management of postoperative pain, as well as discuss the effects of sleep-disturbing medications on pain amplification.

Effect of morphine and naloxone on priming-induced audiogenic seizures in BALB/c mice

1 Morphine (1-200 mg/kg s.c.) reduced the incidence and prolonged the latency of priming-induced audiogenic siezures in a dose-dependent manner. 2 This effect was reversed by naloxone (1 and 2 mg/kg) although naloxone was itself inactive. 3 This priming-induces seizure model may be useful in the study of tolerance and physical dependence.

Brain amines and spontaneous epileptic seizures in the Mongolian gerbil

The seizure sensitive (WJL)UC) strain of Mongolian gerbils has been used to investigate the effects of drugs that modify central monoamine activity on spontaneous epileptiform seizures. Increasing central norepinephrine and dopamine levels significantly reduced the severity of the seizures and the importance of dopamine was further demonstrated by the protection from seizures after administration of the dopaminergic agonist apomorphine. These data indicate that a search for differences in regional levels, or turnover rates, of these amines between seizure sensitive and seizure resistant strains of gerbils might be profitable in determining the genetic deficit underlying the seizure phenomenon in these animals.