New discovery may pave way for non-addictive pain relievers
Startling new research findings contradict conventional wisdom about opioids – and may help guide the design of pain relievers that do not produce addiction or other adverse effects produced by morphine and other opioid medicines.
Researchers funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) used a novel molecular probe to test the assumption that opioids act only on the same surface receptors as endogenous opioids, which are produced naturally in the brain. What they found: medically used opioids also bind to receptors that are not a target for the naturally occurring opioids.