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Opioid agonist and antagonist behavioural effects of buprenorphine
Author(s) -
Leander J. David
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of pharmacology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.432
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1476-5381
pISSN - 0007-1188
DOI - 10.1111/j.1476-5381.1983.tb09410.x
Subject(s) - buprenorphine , antagonist , fentanyl , agonist , anesthesia , medicine , pharmacology , agonist antagonist , morphine , opioid , receptor
1 The agonist and antagonist effects of a range of bupenorphine doses (0.08–20 mg/kg) were studied on the responding of pigeons under a multiple fixed‐ratio, fixed‐interval schedule of grain presentation. Various doses (0.02–10 mg/kg) of buprenorphine were also tested in pigeons trained to discriminate between injections of 0.05 mg/kg of fentanyl and injections of distilled water. 2 Buprenorphine, over a broad dose range (0.08–5 mg/kg), increased the rates of responding in the fixed‐interval component of the multiple schedule and disrupted patterning of responding within the fixed‐interval, without affecting fixed‐ratio responding even at a dose of 40 mg/kg. The effects of some of the high doses on fixed‐interval responding were still evident one and two days after buprenorphine injection. 3 Doses of buprenorphine which produced increases in fixed‐interval responding were also effective as antagonists of the behavioural depression produced by 40 mg/kg of morphine, and were discriminated as fentanyl‐like by pigeons trained to discriminate between injections of fentanyl and injections of water. 4 These results show that buprenorphine produces marked agonist and antagonist effects over an extremely broad dose range without producing behavioural depressant effects.