Chronic bromocriptine administration restores luteinizing hormone response to naloxone in postmenopausal women

To evaluate whether dopaminergic treatment may modify endogenous opioid activity at the hypothalamic-pituitary level, the effects of naloxone infusion (1.6 mg/h for 4 h) on luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion were studied in 5 postmenopausal women either before or after chronic administration of the dopaminergic drug bromocriptine (BCT; 5 mg/day for 30 days). BCT administration did not modify mean plasma LH levels. Before treatment naloxone infusion did not induce any significant modification of LH secretion. Conversely, after chronic BCT administration naloxone induced a significant (p less than 0.05) increase in plasma LH levels. The LH response to naloxone was significantly (p less than 0.001) higher than that observed before BCT. The present data show that chronic BCT administration restores the LH response to naloxone in postmenopausal women. Therefore, these results seem to demonstrate that BCT administration can enhance opioid activity, suggesting an involvement of the endogenous opioid system in dopaminergic modulation of gonadotropin release.