ReviewTranslational psychiatry2023
Heroin and its metabolites: relevance to heroin use disorder.
Review in Translational psychiatry, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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.
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.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Opioidergic modulation of monetary incentive delay fMRI responses.Psychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- A heroin overdose laboratory model: How do escalating doses of diamorphine alter respiratory function in a diamorphine-treated population?Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Trial
- Unpacking Ventral Pallidum GABA Neuron Contributions to Opioid Drug Reward in Rats.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Can the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction incorporate addiction to opioid drugs?Psychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Review
- Review
- Novel Swine Model of Respiratory Depression Induced by Fentanyl and Heroin Overdose.Research square · 2026Article
- Preclinical abuse potential testing using behavioral economics and drug self-administration demand-curve analysis: A strategy to improve resolution of drug stratification for regulatory control.Pharmacological reviews · 2026Review
- Leucine Aminopeptidase fromBiomolecules · 2026Article
- Task-related differences in network connectivity and dynamics in people with severe opioid use disorder compared with healthy controls.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
- Development of an AI-driven chatbot for medication-assisted treatment standards in Scotland.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Use of Psychoactive Substances Before Incarceration Among Prison Inmates With Drug Abuse or Dependence: Data From the OPPIDUM Program.Fundamental & clinical pharmacology · 2026Article
- Fentanyl, Amphetamine-type Stimulants, Heroin, and xylazine in drug residues in two Northern border Mexican cities.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- Review
- Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Intranasal Diacetylmorphine in Heroin-Assisted Treatment for Severe Opioid Use Disorder.CNS drugs · 2025Observational
- Biochemical and Functional Characterization ofBiomolecules · 2025Article
- NEFL Modulates NRN1-Mediated Mitochondrial Pathway to Promote Diacetylmorphine-Induced Neuronal Apoptosis.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- The calcium channel agonist (±)-BAY-K-8644 attenuates the ability of gabapentinoids to increase the potency of fentanyl and heroin and decrease the potency of cocaine and d-methamphetamine to elicit discriminative stimulus effects in rats.The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2025Article
- The Role of Claustrum in Incubation of Opioid Seeking after Electric Barrier-Induced Voluntary Abstinence in Male and Female Rats.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Heroin is an opioid agonist commonly abused for its rewarding effects. Since its synthesis at the end of the nineteenth century, its popularity as a recreational drug has ebbed and flowed. In the last three decades, heroin use has increased again, and yet the pharmacology of heroin is still poorly understood. After entering the body, heroin is rapidly deacetylated to 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM), which is then deacetylated to morphine. Thus, drug addiction literature has long settled on the notion that heroin is little more than a pro-drug. In contrast to these former views, we will argue for a more complex interplay among heroin and its active metabolites: 6-MAM, morphine, and morphine-6-glucuronide (M6G). In particular, we propose that the complex temporal pattern of heroin effects results from the sequential, only partially overlapping, actions not only of 6-MAM, morphine, and M6G, but also of heroin per se, which, therefore, should not be seen as a mere brain-delivery system for its active metabolites. We will first review the literature concerning the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of heroin and its metabolites, then examine their neural and behavioral effects, and finally discuss the possible implications of these data for a better understanding of opioid reward and heroin addiction. By so doing we hope to highlight research topics to be investigated by future clinical and pre-clinical studies.
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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.