Naloxone elicits an excitatory response in the morphine-tolerant mouse vas deferens

The effects of naloxone on the electrically stimulated vas deferens from mice implanted with morphine (tolerant) or placebo (naive) pellets were studied. In tolerant vas deferens, naloxone produced an 86.6 % increase of the twitch contractions when the preparations were stimulated with 15 V, while only a 12 % increase was observed with supramaximal voltage (40 V). Naloxone had no effect at either voltage in preparations from naive animals. The effect of morphine in naive vas deferens stimulated with 15 V, was reversed by naloxone without further increase over baseline contractions. The results suggest that opioid receptors other than those located in the neuronal soma and/or coupled to adenylate cyclase may be involved in the development of dependence.