NATURAL TOLERANCE OF THE AFGHAN PIKA (OCHOTONA-RUFESCENS) TO MORPHINE

A lagomorph, the afghan pika, Ochotona rufescens showed no effect whatever following the subcutaneous injection of morphine in doses up to 50 mg per 100 g of body weight, i.e. 250 times the ED50 for the rat. Higher doses were toxic and induced convulsions. However, the pika is responsive to synthetic opiates such as etorphine, pentazocine and phenoperidine. Interestingly enough, morphine antagonized the opiate response elicited by those narcotics to which the animal is sensitive. Pharmacokinetic analysis demonstrated that morphine enters the pika's brain as readily as it does the rat's. In addition, opiate receptor sites, which are present in normal amounts in pika brain retained their high affinity for 3H-etorphine (KD = 1.2 nM) and morphine. Moreover, binding of morphine to pika brain homogenates was inhibited in the presence of sodium ions (agonist response). Therefore, the antagonism of phenoperidine action by morphine appeared not to occur at the opiate receptor site; the mechanism of the pika's natural tolerance to morphine may reside in molecular events that normally preceed (metabolism?) or follow (enzyme activation?) the interaction between the drug and its specific recognition sites. © 1979.