Spinal and supraspinal components of opioid antinociception in streptozotocin induced diabetic neuropathy in rats.

This study investigated the antinociceptive effect of opioids given via intraperitoneal and intrathecal routes in a diabetes-induced neuropathic pain model in rats. Streptozotocin induced diabetes in 91% of juvenile male Wistar rats at the dose of 150 mg/kg (75 mg/kg intraperitoneal on 2 successive days). When compared with younger weight-matched saline treated rats, the diabetic rats developed hyperalgesia assessed by the paw pressure nociceptive test. Nociceptive thresholds and responses to fentanyl in all nociceptive tests in these younger normal rats were the same as those described previously for older normal rats. Fentanyl (10-100 microg/kg, i.p.) produced a dose-related antinociceptive effect in both neuropathic (n=6-8) and non-neuropathic (n=6-8) rats in electrical current, paw pressure and tail flick nociceptive tests. Higher doses of fentanyl were needed in neuropathic animals to achieve similar antinociceptive effects to those in non-neuropathic animals. Intrathecal injections of fentanyl (0.05-0.5 microg) in non-neuropathic rats, produced a spinally-mediated, dose-related antinociceptive effect assessed by all tests. In contrast, intrathecal administration of fentanyl that confined the drug action to the spinal cord produced little antinociceptive effect in neuropathic rats in all three tests. These experiments suggest that supraspinal mu opioid receptors are responsible for the antinociceptive effect of opioids in this model of neuropathic pain and that spinal cord opioid systems are in some way rendered ineffective for antinociception assessed with noxious heat, electrical and pressure stimuli.