ABSTRACT
Aim To investigate the effects of chronic morphine treatment and withdrawal on the level of SNAPs in different brain regions of rats,including nucleus accumbens(NAc),caudate putamen(CPu) and hippocampus(Hip).Methods Adult male Wistar rats were randomly assigned into control,morphine and spontaneous withdrawal group.The morphine dependent rat model was established by subcutaneous morphine injection with increasing doses for 8 d,three times a day(8:00,12:00,and 18:00).The control group was injected with the same volume of normal saline.Rats in morphine group were killed 4 h after the last injection,and rats in withdrawl group were killed at indicated time.Control groups were paralleled with all treatment groups.The brains were removed and the NAc,CPu and Hip were separated.The expression of SNAPs mRNA and protein were determined by RT-PCR and Western blot.Results The expression of ?SNAP in CPu of morphine dependent rats was up-regulated by about 25%(P
