ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2015
Asymmetry of the endogenous opioid system in the human anterior cingulate: a putative molecular basis for lateralization of emotions and pain.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Neuropeptides in control of left-right neural circuits.Trends in neurosciences · 2026Review
- Dynamic brain lateralization patterns in Chinese naturalistic language comprehension and association with sex differences: a 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging study.Psychoradiology · 2026Article
- Does Laterality Matter? Insights Into Unilateral Pain in Cluster Headache.Journal of clinical neurology (Seoul, Korea) · 2025Article
- Pain Lateralization in Cluster Headache and Associated Clinical Factors.Journal of clinical neurology (Seoul, Korea) · 2025Article
- The Left-Right Side-Specific Neuroendocrine Signaling from Injured Brain: An Organizational Principle.Function (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Neural Functioning in Late-Life Depression: An Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Pain-related cortico-limbic plasticity and opioid signaling.Neuropharmacology · 2023Review
- Prenatal heroin exposure alters brain morphology and connectivity in adolescent mice.NMR in biomedicine · 2023Article
- Proprotein Convertase Subtilisin/Kexin 6 in Cardiovascular Biology and Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Aminopeptidase Activities Interact Asymmetrically between Brain, Plasma and Systolic Blood Pressure in Hypertensive Rats Unilaterally Depleted of Dopamine.Biomedicines · 2022Article
- Data-driven analysis of kappa opioid receptor binding in major depressive disorder measured by positron emission tomography.Translational psychiatry · 2021Article
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- IpsilesionalBrain communications · 2020Article
- Interplay of spinal and vagal pathways on esophageal acid-related anterior cingulate cortex functional networks in rats.American journal of physiology. Gastrointestinal and liver physiology · 2019Article
- Focal traumatic brain injury induces neuroplastic molecular responses in lumbar spinal cord.Restorative neurology and neuroscience · 2019Article
- Functional Hemispheric (A)symmetries in the Aged Brain-Relevance for Working Memory.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2018Article
- Intra- and interregional coregulation of opioid genes: broken symmetry in spinal circuits.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
19 authors at 7 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Lateralization of the processing of positive and negative emotions and pain suggests an asymmetric distribution of the neurotransmitter systems regulating these functions between the left and right brain hemispheres. By virtue of their ability to selectively mediate euphoria, dysphoria, and pain, the μ-, δ-, and κ-opioid receptors and their endogenous ligands may subserve these lateralized functions. We addressed this hypothesis by comparing the levels of the opioid receptors and peptides in the left and right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a key area for emotion and pain processing. Opioid mRNAs and peptides and 5 "classical" neurotransmitters were analyzed in postmortem tissues from 20 human subjects. Leu-enkephalin-Arg (LER) and Met-enkephalin-Arg-Phe, preferential δ-/μ- and κ-/μ-opioid agonists, demonstrated marked lateralization to the left and right ACC, respectively. Dynorphin B (Dyn B) strongly correlated with LER in the left, but not in the right ACC suggesting different mechanisms of the conversion of this κ-opioid agonist to δ-/μ-opioid ligand in the 2 hemispheres; in the right ACC, Dyn B may be cleaved by PACE4, a proprotein convertase regulating left-right asymmetry formation. These findings suggest that region-specific lateralization of neuronal networks expressing opioid peptides underlies in part lateralization of higher functions, including positive and negative emotions and pain in the human brain.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.