There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
This article reviews sex differences in opiate analgesic and related processes as
part of a Special Issue in Hormones and Behavior. The research findings on sex differences
are organized in the following manner: (a) systemic opioid analgesia across mu, delta
and kappa opioid receptor subtypes and drug efficacy at their respective receptors,
(b) effects of the activational and organizational roles of gonadal steroid hormones
and estrus phase on systemic analgesic responses, (c) sex differences in spinal opioid
analgesia, (d) sex differences in supraspinal opioid analgesia and gonadal hormone
effects, (e) the contribution of genetic variance to analgesic sex differences, (f)
sex differences in opioid-induced hyperalgesia, (g) sex differences in tolerance and
withdrawal-dependence effects, and (h) implications for clinical therapies.
Copyright 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.