PHOSPHORYLATED INTERMEDIATES OF CHRONICALLY AND ACUTELY MORPHINIZED RATS

¹ Department of Pharmacology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

1. A study was conducted on the carbohydrate intermediates of rats acutely and chronically treated with morphine. Analyses were made on liver, brain and muscle. The ability of these animals to synthesize glycogen from glucose was also investigated.

2. Control rats receiving 50 mgm./kgm. morphine demonstrated only a slight ability to synthesize liver glycogen while chronically morphinized animals showed the same capacity as the controls. The ATP content, however, of the muscle and liver of morphine tolerant rats fed glucose, was considerably less than that of the glucose-fed control, although the brain did not differ in this respect. Glycogen was found to be abnormally elevated in the muscles of the tolerant rats fed glucose. Lactic acid was elevated in all tissues of morphinized rats.

3. The energy capacity of the various tissues was compared; it was concluded that though chronically morphinized animals possessed a greater energy capacity in muscle, brain and liver than did the acutely treated, their values in brain and liver were still significantly below those of the control.