Subconvulsive doses of intracisternal bicuculline methiodide, a GABAA receptor antagonist, produce potent analgesia as measured in the tail pinch test in mice.

Article date: 1987/4/7

PubMed ID: 3036541

Journal name: European journal of pharmacology (ISSN: 0014-2999)

ABSTRACT

Bicuculline methiodide, a GABAA antagonist produced potent analgesia in the tail pinch test when it was given intracisternally (i.c.) but not intrathecally (i.t.). The ED50 was 5 ng/mouse. This analgesia was antagonized by i.c. muscimol, a GABAA agonist. On the contrary, muscimol (i.t.) produced bicuculline-reversible analgesia. These findings suggest that brain GABA may transmit the nociceptive information while GABA in the spinal cord may inhibit it.

Author List: Ueda H, Ge M, Satoh M, Takagi H

Publication Types: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Substances mentioned in the article: Analgesics; Receptors, GABA-A; Muscimol; bicuculline methiodide; Bicuculline;

Mesh terms: Analgesics; Animals; Bicuculline/analogs & derivatives; Male; Mice; Muscimol/pharmacology; Reaction Time/drug effects; Receptors, GABA-A/drug effects;