Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, California 91766, USA.
Synapse. 2012 Oct;66(10):918-22. doi: 10.1002/syn.21577. Epub 2012 Jul 2.
The number of prescriptions for hydrocodone-containing opioid analgesics has greatly increased over the past decade. This increase has led to an associated enhancement in the nonmedical use of hydrocodone products. There is a lack of evidence to determine the extent of the rewarding effects and signal transduction properties of hydrocodone. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the rewarding properties of hydrocodone (1 and 5 mg/kg) and morphine (1 and 5 mg/kg) using the conditioned place preference paradigm (CPP) in rats. Both hydrocodone and morphine produced a CPP at the 5 mg/kg dose, but not the lower 1 mg/kg dose, suggesting that both drugs possess similar rewarding properties in the CPP paradigm. Moreover, hydrocodone and morphine equally reduced phosphorylation levels of ERK and CREB proteins in the nucleus accumbens, suggesting that both drugs exert their effects through signal transduction pathways known to be involved in drug reward and reinforcement. These findings suggest that hydrocodone should be viewed as similarly capable of producing rewarding and euphoric properties as morphine.
在过去的十年中，含有氢可酮的阿片类镇痛药的处方数量大大增加。这种增加导致了氢可酮产品的非医疗用途的相应增强。目前缺乏证据来确定氢可酮的奖赏效应和信号转导特性的程度。因此，本研究旨在使用大鼠条件性位置偏爱范式（CPP）来检查氢可酮（1 和 5mg/kg）和吗啡（1 和 5mg/kg）的奖赏特性。氢可酮和吗啡都在 5mg/kg 剂量下产生 CPP，但在较低的 1mg/kg 剂量下没有产生 CPP，这表明这两种药物在 CPP 范式中具有相似的奖赏特性。此外，氢可酮和吗啡同样降低了伏隔核中 ERK 和 CREB 蛋白的磷酸化水平，这表明这两种药物通过已知参与药物奖赏和强化的信号转导途径发挥作用。这些发现表明，氢可酮应该被视为与吗啡一样能够产生奖赏和欣快特性。
