Delay of morphine tolerance by palmitoylethanolamide
Laboratory studyOther animals
- Design
- Laboratory study
- Subjects
- Rats given daily morphine to induce tolerance
- Dose used in the study
- PEA, 30 mg/kg given under the skin daily, alongside morphine 10 mg/kg given into the abdomen daily
- Duration
- Daily dosing tracked over multiple days until tolerance developed
- What was measured
- Days of continued morphine pain-relief efficacy, microglia and astrocyte cell counts in the spinal dorsal horn, and TNF-alpha levels and immunoreactivity in astrocytes
What the authors reported
PEA roughly doubled the number of days morphine remained effective compared with morphine alone. It prevented the increase in microglia and astrocyte numbers that morphine caused in the spinal cord, but did not change the rise in spinal TNF-alpha levels, though TNF-alpha immunoreactivity within astrocytes was higher in PEA-treated rats.
Limits of this study
A rat model of morphine tolerance; it cannot show effect in people using opioids for pain. Funding and conflicts not stated in the abstract.
Source
PubMed 25874232 · doi:10.1155/2015/894732
Entry checked against the abstract on PubMed on 2026-09-22. The dose shown is the dose the researchers used. It is not a recommendation. How to read this page.