mu activity in relation to gender/age

[jacky]

heres an interesting paper that I only scanned and read a few paragraphs...

Gender and Age Influences on Human Brain Mu-Opioid Receptor (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=307&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajp.psychiatryonline.org%2Fcgi%2F reprint%2F156%2F6%2F842.pdf&ei=gGErSeDtCom4sAPD0YHhAQ&usg=AFQjCNGzPTE9139Hca2EtVxWSnb0BWmcHg&sig2=UqfAwzM5vK4cV7x66p6Ixw)



from what it sounds like...mu activity should increase with age...
womens brains tend to age more stable as far as mu activity is concerned..

[clinton]

would opiates be more potent on the mu receptors as one ages?
anyone notice this>?
im sure tolerance gets in the way...

[Duckfeet]

I plowed thru it, since I'm older, and am curious about this...but my personal experience has been the opposite...and I found further down in the study that: "subjects were screened for medical, neurological,
and psychiatric disorders and for substance abuse..." In other words: this may not apply to people like us, as they weren't studying *tolerance* which plagues me, and many longterm opiate users...and some of there post-mortem tests were confusing to me, since it would seem *way* too hard to say whether or not it wasn't fear of impending death that caused increased mu activity....

So at one time, darvocets, tylenol 3's and a couple of beers and I called it "good enough"...but after all these years, and so much heroin, and every legal opiate available...whatever my mu is doing, it ain't too thrilled about *anything* anymore...

And since the study excluded people with "substance abuse" problems...we'll never know...

[edhorfin]

Interesting study, I guess. I cant think of any meaningful applications, other than possible changes in dosage guidelines, where age/gender are involved as well as mg/kg....

our poor mu receptors...If they were a muscle that was visible we would all look like some steroid pumped bodybuilder...

[Duckfeet]

LOL:D

Either that, or mine disappeared a long time ago...mu receptors...*what* mu receptors?....oh...here's one...nah, that's just a dead brain cell...


Interesting study, I guess. I cant think of any meaningful applications, other than possible changes in dosage guidelines, where age/gender are involved as well as mg/kg....

our poor mu receptors...If they were a muscle that was visible we would all look like some steroid pumped bodybuilder...

[red26]

What exactly do the MU receptors do for us? Not necessarily for us drug users, but as humans?

[jacky]

look into some of my posts titled zen and the brain for some reading material that discusses mu receptors..

mu receptors do ALOT for us...its more than just pain reception augmentation...
they seem invested as a major part of our hormonal endocrine system.

morphine MIGHT be a natural hormone in the brain...but surely we can say that beta-endorphin is a hormone.

I know that the mu receptors seem intimately involved with memory, learning, novel problem solving etc.

the opiate systems are involved with alot more than just pain related issues.
ALOT more it looks like..

but, since we are in the infancy of opiate/opioid research really, I guess we will have to wait a few years before we really know what is going on alltogether.

personally, I think opiate receptors other than just the kappa and sigma are involved with psychedelic effects...
I think mu activity might be involved with other receptor types like serotonin...and we know that there is some connection with dopamine release and mu activity.

I wish we had a proffesional here that could distill it all into a important and significant statement...till then, we will have to rely on a few books to point the way.