Abstract

When rats are returned to an environment in which they previously received electric shock they show a reduction in sensitivity to painful stimuli. This conditional fear-induced analgesia was measured using the formalin test. The octapeptide Cys2Tyr3Orn5Pen7-amide (CTOP; 0, 10, 40 and 160 ng/rat) dose-dependently reversed conditional analgesia when administered i.c.v. The 40-ng dose partially attenuated fear-induced analgesia, whereas the 160-ng dose reversed it completely. Using similar procedures, CTOP was tested for its ability to reverse the analgesia produced by i.c.v. administered [D-Ala2,-NMPhe4, Glyol5]-enkephalin, [D-Pen2,D-Pen5]-enkephalin and U50488H, which are highly selective opioid agonists at mu, delta and kappa receptors, respectively. At 40 ng/rat, CTOP reversed the analgesia produced by the mu selective ligand but not that produced by the delta ligand or the kappa ligand. At 80 ng CTOP antagonized the analgesia produced both by both enkephalin analogs but not U50488H. Nor-binaltorphimine (0, 1, 3, 10 and 30 micrograms/rat) had no effect on conditional analgesia. However, the 10- and 30-micrograms doses could reverse completely the analgesia produced by U50488H. Therefore, it appears that mu and delta, but not kappa receptors, are involved in this opioid form of stress-induced analgesia.