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Opioid peptides and pituitary function

Introduction: A number of in-vitro model systems have been introduced for the study of the action of morphine-like drugs. Their usefulness depends on their relative simplicity, compared to the brain and central nervous system, and on the good correlation observed between potencies in the models and potencies in the whole animal. For example, the contractions of the isolated guinea-pig ileum and mouse vas deferens to electrical stimulation at low frequencies are inhibited by opiate analgesics due to a reduced release of the motor transmitters acetylcholine (Paton, 1957) and noradrenaline (Henderson, Hughes & Kosterlitz, 1972) respectively, and the order of potencies in these smooth muscle models correlates well with the analgesic potencies of these drugs (see Kosterlitz & Waterfield, 1975).

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