Dual effect of naloxone on drinking behaviour of rats

Naloxone, administered to rats subcutaneously or by i.c.v. route, produces a dose-dependent inhibition of water intake elicited by angiotensin II or water deprivation. However, doses of the drug which do not affect drinking inhibit the antidipsic effect of subcutaneous morphine. The larger is the dose of morphine, the larger is the antimorphinic effect evoked by naloxone. These data would suggest that, at least in respect to the effects of narcotics on water intake, naloxone is a partial agonist of the nalorphine type, but the slopes of naloxone and of morphine dose-response regression lines are not in keeping with this hypothesis. Thus, the mechanism of the anti-morphic effect elicited by naloxone on drinking behaviour remains to be clarified.