These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Activation of periaqueductal grey pools of beta-endorphin by analgetic electrical stimulation in freely moving rats.
    Author: Millan MJ, Członkowski A, Millan MH, Herz A.
    Journal: Brain Res; 1987 Mar 24; 407(1):199-203. PubMed ID: 2884014.
    Abstract:
    Electrical stimulation of the ventral midbrain periaqueductal grey (PAG) elicited an antinociception (analgesia) in freely moving rats. Stimulated animals displayed a pronounced decrease in levels of immunoreactive (ir)-beta-endorphin (beta-EP) in the midbrain PAG. This depletion was selective in that: animals placed in the chamber and not stimulated revealed neither an analgesia nor an alteration in levels of ir-beta-EP. No change in levels of ir-beta-EP was detectable in other brain regions. Both stimulated rats and rats placed in the chamber and not stimulated revealed a rise in circulating ir-beta-EP: the magnitude of this rise did not, however, differ between these groups. Levels of ir-Met-enkephalin, ir-Leu-enkephalin and ir-dynorphin A were modified neither in the PAG nor in other CNS tissues. The data demonstrate that electrical stimulation of the midbrain PAG selectively influences (presumably activates) pools of beta-EP therein. Together with our finding that destruction of PAG-localized beta-EP neurones to block stimulation-analgesia, the data suggest that an activation of intrinsic pools of beta-EP underlies stimulation-produced analgesia elicited from the PAG in the rat.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]