Jesus Arellano

Ibarra
Health
6 November, 2016

Research Paper on Morphine

My drug for this paper is going to be on Morphine, and you might ask what is Morphine?
It is an opioid medication also known as a narcotic drug. What Morphine does it helps to treat
severe pain and life threating situations, Like if you are on the verge of death it can stop the pain
from it and help you to stay alive. Soldiers to this day carry this in their med-kits this narcotic
drug to treat their companions and help them to stay alive. But there are some cautions things
you should be aware of when taking this drug. Like if you have severe asthma or any breathing
problems you should not recommend this drug because it causes blockages in your stomach or
intestines, or a bowel obstruction called paralytic ileus. Morphine can also slow breathing and
stop it, do not overdose on this medication or for longer than prescribed, also do not share this
with anyone especially someone who is highly addicted to drugs keep this out of reach and only
put it in a place that only you have access to it. Do not drink alcohol and do morphine at the
same time because dangerous side effects will occur and can lead to death.
These are the Morphine side effects. You have a slow heart rate, chest pain, shallow
breathing, extreme drowsiness, impotence, sexual problems, loss of interest in sex. You should
seek medical attention right away if you any of these side effects listed above. Morphine is more
likely to cause breathing problems for adults rather than teens and people who are very ill. Keep
track of the amount of medicine used from each new bottle. Morphine is a drug of abuse and you
should be aware if anyone is using this drug improperly any kind of situations.

Morphine shows promise against post-traumatic stress disorder

Early administration of morphine to military personnel wounded on the front lines during
Operation Iraqi Freedom appears to have done more than relieve excruciating pain. Scientists
believe it also prevented hundreds of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, the debilitating
condition in the armies. Small clinical trials and observational studies have hinted that opiates
and other medications could disrupt the way the brain encodes traumatic memories, thus
preventing the incidents from being recorded with too much intensity. The new findings -- troops
who received morphine within a few hours of their injuries were about 50% less likely to
develop PTSD than those who didn't get the powerful painkiller -- are a strong endorsement of
that theory.
The results underscore the potential for preemptive treatment not just for soldiers, but for
victims of war, natural disasters, physical abuse, violent crimes such as rape, and traumatic
accidents. Treatment usually involves talk therapy to help patients change how they react to
painful memories, and antidepressants and other medications can sometimes ease symptoms. But
these approaches leave much to be desired. The idea behind the preventive treatment approach is
to disrupt the transmission of norepinephrine in the brain, either by blocking its release or by
preventing it from binding to a receptor.
In either case, a drug would have to be administered very early, while the memory was
still being encoded. In the latest study, a team from the Naval Health Research Center in San
Diego considered the treatment histories of 696 military personnel who were injured in Iraq
between 2004 and 2006 and were cared for at medical facilities in the field. Because painful
events are more likely to be traumatizing, the most logical conclusion could be that morphine
worked by decreasing patients' pain, Holbrook and her colleagues wrote.

Morphine vs. cocaine: A different mechanism of addiction

Cocaine and morphine both have profound effects on the flow of dopamine -- a neurotransmitter
scientists have consistently implicated in our sensations of reward in the brain. Signaling takes
place when one neuron releases dopamine and a neighboring cell takes it up. The excess
dopamine left over between the cells is then brought back into the cell that released it, a process
called reuptake. But cocaine blocks reuptake, leading to more dopamine hanging out between
cells. That results in a more powerful sense of reward.
This process has been particularly well-studied in two brain areas called the ventral
tegmental area, or VTA, and the nucleus accumbens. Neurons that originate in the VTA release
dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, which is right next door, and cocaine appears to impact
these neurons more than others. morphine reward works like turning down a light's dimmer
switch -- it dials down the number of electrical impulses transmitting information between the
VTA and the nucleus accumbens. The researchers determined this by directly exciting neurons in
the nucleus accumbens -- the ones that receive information from the VTA.
This completely eliminated BDNF's ability to make morphine less rewarding. while the
mechanism of addiction is different for the two drugs, the pathway is basically the same:
Both drugs mess up the signaling between the two brain regions, but through different
means. That means researchers should start looking at how chemicals like BDNF influence not
just morphine or cocaine abusers -- and their mouse equivalents -- but users of multiple drugs as
well.

The Molecular Perspective: Morphine

Morphine blocks more and more pain with increasing doses. Morphine is far from perfect,
however: it causes nausea and constipation, it presents a constant danger of life-threatening
respiratory depression, and it is strongly addictive. Morphine is so effective because it acts
directly at pain-modulating receptors in the nervous system, termed opioid receptors. When
morphine binds to opioid receptors, the painkilling message is transmitted inside the cell through
a G protein cascade, The G protein system is the most common method of signaling in our cells.
There are thousands of different G protein-coupled receptors, in the opioid signaling
chain has several targets. It increases conduction through potassium channels, decreases
conduction through calcium channels, and inhibits adenylyl cyclase. Together, these changes
blunt the effect of signaling systems that transmit pain. Morphine and other opiates are addictive
and have been drugs of abuse for thousands of years.
One site where morphine acts is in the reward center of the brainthe area that makes
eating and other essential processes feel pleasurable. The brain responds to morphine by building
more components for the G protein signaling system.
Over time, more and more morphine is needed to have the same effect on the system.
When morphine is removed, the normal function of the pleasure system is dulled by the bloated
G protein signaling system, leading to severe withdrawal symptoms. Morphine withdrawal can
be very uncomfortable, especially for heavy users. Symptoms vary in intensity depending on the
users tolerance, overall health and metabolism, as well as the frequency and duration of drug
use. Here are the following withdrawal symptoms: Watery eyes, Runny nose, Sweating, Fever,
Vomiting, Nausea, Diarrhea, Increase blood pressure, Rapid heartbeat, Anxiety, Depression.

Morphine may make pain last longer

Painkillers in the opium family may actually make pain last longer. Morphine treatment after a
nerve injury doubled the duration of pain in rats. The results raise the troubling prospect that in
addition to having unpleasant side effects and addictive potential, opioids such as OxyContin and
Vicodin. Scientists have known that opioid-based drugs can cause heightened sensitivity to pain
for some people, a condition called opioid-induced hyperalgesia.
The new study shows that the effects linger weeks after use of the drugs is stopped. Male
rats underwent surgery in which their sciatic nerves, which run down the hind legs, were
squeezed with a stitch a constriction that causes pain afterward. Ten days after surgery, rats
received a five-day course of either morphine or saline.
Longer-lasting pain in the rats came courtesy of an inflammatory response in the spinal
cord. The immune system sees morphine as a threat, the researchers suspect, and responds by
revving up inflammation through specialized cells called microglia. Experiments that shut down
this process in microglia shortened the duration of the pain.
The experiments were done in genetically similar rats, and that people may have more
varied responses to opioids. That variability might mean that not everyone would be at risk for
such long-lasting pain, he says. But clearly these data suggest that there may be a subset of
people who might be in trouble. on how opioids influence pain could change doctors prescribing
habits and encourage the search for better pain treatments. And for this research I would
encourage doctors in the future to try find better treatments and help out the society more. I know
in the future theres going to be a medicine to cure very severe in pain patients in a different way,
with the new technology we discover. But until then we have make use on what we have.

Citation 1: "Morphine: Uses, Dosage, Side Effects, Warnings - Drugs.com." Morphine:

Uses, Dosage, Side Effects, Warnings - Drugs.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
Citation 2: Kaplan, Karen. "Morphine Shows Promise against Post-traumatic Stress
Disorder." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 14 Jan. 2010. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
Citation 3: : Bardin, Jon. "Morphine vs. Cocaine: A Different Mechanism of Addiction."
Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 04 Oct. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
Citation 4: Goodsell, David S. "The Molecular Perspective: Morphine." The Molecular
Perspective: Morphine. N.p., 01 Nov. 2004. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
Citation 5: : Sanders, Laura. "Morphine May Make Pain Last Longer." Science News
Magazine of the Society for Science & Public. N.p., 30 May 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.