Footshock induced analgesia is dependent neither on pituitary nor sympathetic activation

A variety of environmental stimuli have been demonstrated to produce behavioral analgesia. Of these, footshock has been shown to be capable of differentially eliciting opiate or non-opiate analgesia dependent upon the body region shocked; front paw and hind paw shock produce opiate and non-opiate analgesia, respectively. In addition, footshock can be used as a conditioned stimulus to elicit classically conditioned opiate analgesia. A question which arises is whether such plain inhibition is mediated by neural or hormonal pathways. Evidence exists which suggests that endogenous opioids in the pituitary and adrenal medulla may be involved in the production of environmentally induced analgesia. Furthermore, epinephrine administration has previously been shown to produce pronounced pain inhibition. However, the present series of experiments demonstrate that the pituitary-adrenal cortical and sympathetic-adrenal medullary axes are neither necessary nor sufficient for the production of footshock induced analgesia (FSIA). Hypophysectomy failed to attenuate front paw FSIA, hind paw FSIA or classically conditioned analgesia indicating that pituitary beta-endorphin or other pituitary factors are not necessary for the production of analgesia. Adrenal opioids and peripheral catecholamines are also not critical since front paw FSIA was potentiated by adrenalectomy or total sympathetic blockade. Furthermore, pituitary and sympathetic activation are not sufficient for the production of analgesia since low thoracic spinalization allows normal hormonal response to front paw shock yet abolishes shock-induced inhibition of the spinally mediated tail flick reflex. These results provide strong evidence that front paw FSIA, hind paw FSIA and classically conditioned analgesia are mediated by neural, rather than hormonal pathways and provide further parallels between these forms of environmental analgesia, morphine analgesia and brain stimulation produced analgesia.