Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 111, No. 51 (December 23, 2014), pp. 18369-18374 (6 pages) Positive allosteric modulation of the mu-opioid ...

Opioids slot into opioid receptors and activate them. This sends signals to your brain to relieve pain and promote pleasure. Both endogenous opioids, which your body naturally produces, and exogenous ...

The opioid system controls pain, reward and addictive behaviors. Opioids exert their pharmacological actions through three opioid receptors, mu, delta and kappa whose genes have been cloned (Oprm, ...

Alcohol-use disorders have a significant genetic component to their development. New findings show that heavy drinkers with the G allele of the A118G polymorphism of the mu-opioid receptor gene have ...

A new discovery shows that opioids used to treat pain, such as morphine and oxycodone, produce their effects by binding to receptors inside neurons, contrary to conventional wisdom that they acted ...

Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering are designing new molecules that can block pain signals. This image shows the molecule MP1104 binding into the pocket of the kappa opioid receptor (in orange).

Due to the importance of dietary sodium and its paucity within many inland environments, terrestrial animals have evolved an instinctive sodium appetite that is commensurate with sodium deficiency.

Alcohol-use disorders have a significant genetic component to their development. New findings show that heavy drinkers with the G allele of the A118G polymorphism of the mu-opioid receptor gene have ...