Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30085126›Full record

ReviewThe international journal of neuropsychopharmacology2018

Making Sense of Pharmacology: Inverse Agonism and Functional Selectivity.

Kelly A Berg, William P Clarke

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 78 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
78citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

78 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. New Antipsychotic Medications in the Last Decade.Current psychiatry reports · 2021
    Pooled it
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. Review
  5. Review
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Onset of Analgesia in Rats (Rattus norvegicus) for Three Buprenorphine Formulations.Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2026
    Article
  10. Review
  11. Review
  12. Review
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Constitutive activity of the sweet taste receptor: Heavy water sweetness and beyond.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2025
    Review
  16. Review
  17. Review
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review

18 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Kelly A BergDepartment of Pharmacology, University of Texas Health, San Antonio, Texas.
William P ClarkeDepartment of Pharmacology, University of Texas Health, San Antonio, Texas.

Funding

KOR Agonist Functional Selectivity in Peripheral Sensory NeuronsR01DA038645 · NIDA · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCIENCE CENTER · PI BERG, KELLY ANN, CLARKE, WILLIAM P · 2015 to 2019
$2.8M
Regulation of Kappa opioid receptor-mediated signaling and peripheral analgesiaR01GM106035 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCIENCE CENTER · PI CLARKE, WILLIAM P · 2014 to 2017
$1.2M
Regulation of DOR-KOR heteromer formation in pain-sensing neuronsR21DA037572 · NIDA · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCIENCE CENTER · PI CLARKE, WILLIAM P · 2014 to 2015
$408k
NIDA NIH HHS R01 DA038645NIDA NIH HHS R21 DA037572NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM106035
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Constitutive receptor activity/inverse agonism and functional selectivity/biased agonism are 2 concepts in contemporary pharmacology that have major implications for the use of drugs in medicine and research as well as for the processes of new drug development. Traditional receptor theory postulated that receptors in a population are quiescent unless activated by a ligand. Within this framework ligands could act as agonists with various degrees of intrinsic efficacy, or as antagonists with zero intrinsic efficacy. We now know that receptors can be active without an activating ligand and thus display "constitutive" activity. As a result, a new class of ligand was discovered that can reduce the constitutive activity of a receptor. These ligands produce the opposite effect of an agonist and are called inverse agonists. The second topic discussed is functional selectivity, also commonly referred to as biased agonism. Traditional receptor theory also posited that intrinsic efficacy is a single drug property independent of the system in which the drug acts. However, we now know that a drug, acting at a single receptor subtype, can have multiple intrinsic efficacies that differ depending on which of the multiple responses coupled to a receptor is measured. Thus, a drug can be simultaneously an agonist, an antagonist, and an inverse agonist acting at the same receptor. This means that drugs have an additional level of selectivity (signaling selectivity or "functional selectivity") beyond the traditional receptor selectivity. Both inverse agonism and functional selectivity need to be considered when drugs are used as medicines or as research tools.

Indexed as

Drug AgonismDrug Inverse AgonismAnimalsHumansSignal Transduction

Identifiers

PMID30085126
PMCPMC6165953

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

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.