[Drug dependent patients in the methadone maintenance program: evaluation in primary care of psychosocial and organic severity]. / Pacientes toxicómanos en Programa de Mantenimiento con Metadona: evaluación del perfil de gravedad psicosocial y orgánico en atención primaria.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the profile of bio-psycho-social gravity in opiate-dependent patients in the Methadone Maintenance Programme. DESIGN: A descriptive crossover study. SETTING: Primary Care Centre. PATIENTS: 31 heroin-dependent patients on Methadone treatment at a drug-dependency care centre who attended the Health Centre for drug dispensing, between February and December 1996. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: All patients were given the semi-structured clinical interview Opiate Treatment Index (OTI) and filled in the self-administered APGAR family questionnaire. 48.3% had little deterioration in their "General Health Status" section and 54.8% had low scores in "Conduct causing risk of HIV contagion". CONCLUSIONS: The observed data are consistent with the results to be expected in this kind of programme. The multidimensional evaluation instruments are a tool that can be used to tackle drug-dependent patients in Primary Care.

Attenuation of learned helplessness in rats after transplant of adrenal medulla into the spinal cord.

The influence of an adrenal medullary transplant into the lumbar subarachnoid space on learned helplessness, an animal model of depression, was examined. The transplanted rats were found to be less susceptible than sham-operated animals to become helpless after administration of inescapable shocks. The effect was attributed to release of opioid peptides by chromaffin cells as it was reversed by naloxone. The viability of the transplanted tissue was verified by electron microscopy.

Antinociceptive effects of phenobarbital in "tail-flick" test and deafferentation pain.

Deafferentation pain has been related to abnormal electrical hyperactivity in the neurons of the sensory relays in the central nervous system. This electrical activity resembles the epileptoid pattern observed in experimental epileptoid foci. With the aim of preventing this hyperactivity, rats were given long-term treatment with phenobarbital after sciatic transection and dorsal cervical rhizotomy. Daily intramuscular injections of saline solution or 5 and 10 mg/kg of phenobarbital were administered for 20 days, starting 10 days before surgery. Larger doses of phenobarbital delayed the onset and reduced the severity of autotomy. In a test of acute pain, the effect of intraperitoneal (1-16 mg) and intrathecal (100-500 micrograms) phenobarbital was studied by measuring the "tail-flick" response latency. Intraperitoneal phenobarbital did not modify acute pain, but 500 micrograms of intrathecal phenobarbital increased the threshold of pain. These results indicate that (a) phenobarbital, a drug with anticonvulsant activity, reduces deafferentation behavior in rats, and (b) intrathecal phenobarbital has an antinociceptive action in acute experimental pain.