ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2016
Ethanol Reversal of Tolerance to the Respiratory Depressant Effects of Morphine.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global patterns of opioid use and dependence: harms to populations, interventions, and future action.Lancet (London, England) · 2019Pooled it
- Trial
- Potentiation of fentanyl-induced respiratory depression by alcohol is not fully reversed by naloxone.JCI insight · 2026Article
- Divergent ventilatory responses during opioid-induced respiratory depression in response to repeated fentanyl use.American journal of physiology. Lung cellular and molecular physiology · 2025Article
- Alcohol and alcoholism associated neurological disorders: Current updates in a global perspective and recent recommendations.World journal of experimental medicine · 2025Review
- Article
- Respiratory Depression Associated with Opioids: A Narrative Review.Current treatment options in oncology · 2024Review
- Assessment of the potential of novel and classical opioids to induce respiratory depression in mice.British journal of pharmacology · 2023Article
- Theophylline reverses oxycodone's but not fentanyl's respiratory depression in mice while caffeine is ineffective against both opioids.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2023Article
- Analysis of the UK Government's 10-Year Drugs Strategy-a resource for practitioners and policymakers.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Fentanyl analog structure-activity relationships demonstrate determinants of diverging potencies for antinociception and respiratory depression.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2023Article
- Heroin- and Fentanyl-Induced Respiratory Depression in a Rat Plethysmography Model: Potency, Tolerance, and Sex Differences.The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2023Article
- Amphetamines modulate fentanyl-depressed respiration in a bidirectional manner.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2023Article
- The role of adenosine in alcohol-induced respiratory suppression.Neuropharmacology · 2023Article
- Role of mu opioid receptor (MOR) agonist efficacy as a determinant of opioid antinociception in a novel assay of pain-depressed behavior in female and male mice.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The respiratory depressant effects of mitragynine are limited by its conversion to 7-OH mitragynine.British journal of pharmacology · 2022Article
- Opioid-like adverse effects of tianeptine in male rats and mice.Psychopharmacology · 2022Article
- Experimental considerations for the assessment of in vivo and in vitro opioid pharmacology.Pharmacology & therapeutics · 2022Review
- Role of Acetaldehyde in Ethanol Reversal of Tolerance to Morphine-Induced Respiratory Depression in Mice.Advances in drug and alcohol research · 2022Article
- Respiratory depressant effects of fentanyl analogs are opioid receptor-mediated.Biochemical pharmacology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Opioids are the most common drugs associated with unintentional drug overdose. Death results from respiratory depression. Prolonged use of opioids results in the development of tolerance but the degree of tolerance is thought to vary between different effects of the drugs. Many opioid addicts regularly consume alcohol (ethanol), and post-mortem analyses of opioid overdose deaths have revealed an inverse correlation between blood morphine and ethanol levels. In the present study, we determined whether ethanol reduced tolerance to the respiratory depressant effects of opioids. Mice were treated with opioids (morphine, methadone, or buprenorphine) for up to 6 days. Respiration was measured in freely moving animals breathing 5% CO2 in air in plethysmograph chambers. Antinociception (analgesia) was measured as the latency to remove the tail from a thermal stimulus. Opioid tolerance was assessed by measuring the response to a challenge dose of morphine (10 mg/kg i.p.). Tolerance developed to the respiratory depressant effect of morphine but at a slower rate than tolerance to its antinociceptive effect. A low dose of ethanol (0.3 mg/kg) alone did not depress respiration but in prolonged morphine-treated animals respiratory depression was observed when ethanol was co-administered with the morphine challenge. Ethanol did not alter the brain levels of morphine. In contrast, in methadone- or buprenorphine-treated animals no respiratory depression was observed when ethanol was co-administered along with the morphine challenge. As heroin is converted to morphine in man, selective reversal of morphine tolerance by ethanol may be a contributory factor in heroin overdose deaths.
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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.