Social conflict analgesia: Studies on naloxone antagonism and morphine cross-tolerance in male DBA/2 mice

Abstract

It has recently been reported that male mice exhibit pronounced analgesia in response to attack from aggressive conspecifics. Although several studies indicate that this reaction can be blocked by opiate antagonist pretreatment, unequivocal evidence of opioid involvement is very much more limited. In the present study, the phenomenon of conflict analgesia has been studied in male DBA/2 intruder mice following exposure to a criterion level of attack from aggressive BKW residents. Our findings indicate that this analgesia is (1) blocked and reversed by naloxone (2) unaltered by methyl naloxone, except at high doses (75 mg/kg) and (3) fully cross-tolerant with morphine. This profile confirms and extends earlier findings with B6AF 1 mice, indicating that the opioid mediation of this biologically-relevant form of environmental analgesia is not strain specific.