Naloxone hyperalgesia and stress-induced analgesia in rats

Since past studies concerning the effects of naloxone on nociception have yielded inconclusive findings, the variables of pain test, baseline sensitivity, and stress condition were examined. Within a pure-bred strain of rats, consistent individual differences did not occur. All three measures of pain responsiveness demonstrated hyperalgesic effects of naloxone, but they differed in their capacity to reflect the effects of analgesia produced by continuous or intermittent electrical shock. By some measures, naloxone reversed the stress-induced analgesia due to intermittent shock; it did not influence the analgesia produced by continuous stress. The data support a model of pain inhibition involving both opioid and non-opioid systems and suggest that the hyperalgesic effects of naloxone can sometimes give rise to erroneous conclusions concerning apparent naloxone-reversability of putative analgesic procedures.