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Understanding opioid reward
Open accessAbstract
Opioids are the most potent analgesics in clinical use; however, their powerful rewarding properties can lead to addiction. The scientific challenge is to retain analgesic potency while limiting the development of tolerance, dependence, and addiction. Both rewarding and analgesic actions of opioids depend upon actions at the mu opioid (MOP) receptor. Systemic opioid reward requires MOP receptor function in the midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA) which contains dopaminergic neurons. VTA dopaminergic neurons are implicated in various aspects of reward including reward prediction error, working memory, and incentive salience. It is now clear that subsets of VTA neurons have different pharmacological properties and participate in separate circuits. The degree to which MOP receptor agonists act on different VTA circuits depends upon the behavioral state of the animal, which can be altered by manipulations such as food deprivation or prior exposure to MOP receptor agonists.
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“Other neuromodulators, such as opioids, seem to be more intrinsic to reward in that regard (e.g. Fields and Margolis, 2015).”
From The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization (2016) · cites this paper as Fields and Margolis, 2015
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Metadata
- Authors
- Fields, H. L., & Margolis, E. B.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Corresponding author
- Fields, Howard L.
- Venue
- Trends in Neurosciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-04
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 217-225
- ISSN
- 0166-2236 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4385443
- OpenAlex
- W2035419353
- Cited by
- 432
- References
- 131
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 93 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 50 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 15
- FWCI
- 3.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Trends in Neurosciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA029776)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuropeptides and Animal Physiology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Keywords
- opioid reward, mu-opioid receptor, ventral tegmental area, dopaminergic neurons, opioid use disorder, analgesia, reward prediction error, incentive salience, working memory, behavioral state, food deprivation, opioid tolerance
- MeSH terms
- Analgesics, Opioid, Animals, Humans, Receptors, Opioid, Reinforcement, Psychology, Reward, Receptors, Opioid, mu, Ventral Tegmental Area, Dopaminergic Neurons
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