Date of Award
8-2010
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.S.
Degree Program
Psychology
Department
Psychology
Major Professor
Soignier, Rodney Denis
Second Advisor
LaHoste, Gerald J.
Third Advisor
Daniel, Jill M.
Abstract
Opioid medications are medicine's best weapon against severe intractable pain, but prolonged use of these medications can be complicated by side effects like tolerance and mental clouding which, themselves, can be disabling. The present study examined the independent and combined effects of inflammatory pain and opioid medication on spatial memory for a well learned task in Sprague-Dawley rats. The Hargreaves method was used to verify the pain state of the animals after complete Freund's adjuvant injection and morphine treatment. Whereas pain had little effect on spatial memory, morphine had profound detrimental effects that persisted beyond the analgesic effectiveness of the drug. However, morphine-induced cognitive deficits were absent when morphine was provided to animals in chronic pain. Also, analgesic tolerance was significantly attenuated in these animals. Taken together, these results suggest that chronic pain activates a neural mechanism that antagonizes the unwanted effects of opioids.
Recommended Citation
Baiamonte, Brandon, "The Interaction of Pain and Morphine on Analgesia, Locomotion, and Cognitive Functioning" (2010). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1207.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1207
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.