Opioid Abuse Initiates Specific Protein Interactions in Brain’s Reward System

New research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai revealed how opiate use alters the activity of a specific protein needed for the normal functioning of the brain’s reward center. Identifying the specific pathways that promote opioid addiction, pain relief, and tolerance are crucial for developing more effective and less dangerous analgesics, as well as new treatments for addiction. During the study, researchers were able to block the protein, as well as increase its expression in the mouse nucleus accumbens, a key component of the brain’s reward center. It altered the actions of opioids such as morphine dramatically, and is the first study to show that opioid use changes activity of the protein RGS9-2, and alters the threshold for pain relief, affecting opioid tolerance. Because opioid addiction is widespread, with 1.9 million Americans considered to be dependent on prescription opioids in 2010, these discoveries provide important new information about the role of the brain’s reward pathway and its analgesic response to opiates. To read more about this study, click here.