New-Generation Painkiller Outperforms the Most Powerful Drugs
Wake Forest School: AT-121 — a painkiller acting on the nociceptin receptor, does not cause addiction and works at a dose 100 times smaller than morphine.
Wake Forest School: AT-121 — a painkiller acting on the nociceptin receptor, does not cause addiction and works at a dose 100 times smaller than morphine.
Researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine are working on a safe painkiller that would not cause addiction. To date, the experimental drug AT-121 has been tested on animals. It not only effectively relieves pain but also makes it possible to avoid using opioid painkillers.
AT-121 acts on both the mu opioid receptor (the way the most powerful painkillers work) and the nociceptin receptor (which blocks the addiction and adverse effects caused by mu-receptor action). Opioids such as oxycodone and fentanyl work only with the mu receptor and provoke side effects — respiratory depression, addiction, increased sensitivity to pain.
The experiment showed that AT-121 produced the same relief as opioids, but at a dose 100 times lower than the dose of morphine used. In parallel, the new agent reduced dependence on oxycodone.
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