Continuous infusion of naloxone: effects on behavior and oxygen consumption

Twenty-eight hours of endorphin receptor blockade by subcutaneous naloxone infusion produced behavioral and respiratory symptoms resembling opiate abstinence syndrome. Rats were implanted subcutaneously with two Alzet osmotic minipumps delivering 0.7 mg/kg per hour naloxone or with two control minipumps containing distilled water only. They were observed for 10 minutes under blind conditions at 16 and 28 hours post-implantation. The naloxone-infused rats showed significantly more wet dog shakes, abdominal writhes and overall abstinence-like symptoms than did the control rats. These symptoms decreased after 28 hours despite continued naloxone infusion. Acute administration of naloxone failed to produce abstinence-like symptoms, even when combined with the trauma of carrying two implanted water-filled minipumps for 28 hours. In another experiment, naloxone-infused rats showed a highly significant 53.4% elevation of O2 consumption over water-infused control rats in a pure O2 atmosphere at 28 hours after implantation. This difference disappeared at 48 hours post-implantation. In contrast to the effect of naloxone infusion, acute administration of three different doses of naloxone failed to significantly increase O2 consumption.