Effect of rat parental morphine exposure on passive avoidance memory and morphine conditioned place preference in male offspring

Abstract

Drug addiction is a chronic disorder resulted from complex interaction of genetic, environmental, and developmental factors. Epigenetic mechanisms play an important role in the development and maintenance of addiction and also memory formation in the brain. We have examined passive avoidance memory and morphine conditioned place preference (CPP) in the offspring of male and/or female rats with a history of adulthood morphine consumption. Adult male and female animals received chronic oral morphine for 21days and then were maintained drug free for 10days. After that, they were let to mate with either an abstinent or control rat. Male offspring's memory was evaluated by step through test. Besides, rewarding effects of morphine were checked with CCP paradigm. Offspring of abstinent animals showed significant memory impairment compared to the control group which was more prominent in the offspring of abstinent females. Conditioning results showed that administration of a high dose of morphine (10mg/kg) that could significantly induce CPP in control rats, was not able to induce similar results in the offspring of morphine abstinent parents; and CPP was much more prominent when it was induced in the offspring of morphine exposed females compared to the progeny of morphine exposed males. It is concluded that parental morphine consumption in adulthood even before mating has destructive effects on memory state of the male offspring and also leads to tolerance to the rewarding effects of morphine. These effects are greater when the morphine consumer parent is the female one.

Adult rat morphine exposure changes morphine preference, anxiety, and the brain expression of dopamine receptors in male offspring

“…Besides, mu, kappa and delta opioid receptors are found in oocytes, which may be involved in the trans-generational inheritance of addiction (Yohn et al, 2015). Furthermore, previous studies have shown that altered response to morphine is transmittable to the next generation of morphine administered rats (Akbarabadi et al, 2018;Byrnes, 2005;Byrnes et al, 2013). Physiological and organic alterations in the brain of the progeny of morphine exposed parents have also been reported (Cicero et al, 1991;Sarkaki et al, 2008).…”

Drug-Induced Conditioned Place Preference and Its Practical Use in Substance Use Disorder Research

“…Conditioned place preference (CPP) was developed as a technique to assess the reinforcing properties of opioid drugs (Rossi and Reid, 1976 ; Katz and Gormezano, 1979 ; Mucha and Iversen, 1984 ). Now, CPP is widely used to test context associations based on the rewarding properties of an unconditioned stimulus in many organisms including, rodents (Lu et al, 2005 ; Akbarabadi et al, 2018 ; Cunningham, 2019 ), flies (Kaun et al, 2011 ), C. elegans (Musselman et al, 2012 ; Engleman et al, 2018 ), planaria (Hutchinson et al, 2015 ; Mohammed Jawad et al, 2018 ; Adams and Byrne, 2019 ; Phelps et al, 2019 ), primates (Wang et al, 2012 ; Borges et al, 2015 ; Yan et al, 2015 ; Wu et al, 2016 ), and humans (Thewissen et al, 2006 ; Childs and De Wit, 2009 , 2013 , 2016 ). Although a widely used behavioral model, CPP is a complex behavior that incorporates Pavlovian learning, memory, and motivated behaviors.…”

Transgenerational influence of parental morphine exposure on pain perception, anxiety-like behavior and passive avoidance memory among male and female offspring of Wistar rats

“…Wistar albino rats, weighing between 200 to 220 grams were purchased from Pasture Institute, Tehran, Iran. The rats were exposed to morphine according to a modified protocol of Akbarabadi and colleagues (2018[3]). The total of 32 males and 32 females were used for mating and morphine treatment.…”

“…Twenty-four male and twenty-four female Wistar rats were exposed to the treatment of oral morphine sulfate according to the protocol described earlier (Akbarabadi et al, 2018[3]). Morphine was given in the drinking fluid in the range of 0.1 to 0.4 mg.ml -1 in 48 intervals for up to three weeks (Figure 1A(Fig.…”

“…The passive avoidance memory is evaluated according to the protocol that was described earlier (Akbarabadi et al, 2018[3]). The avoidance memory apparatus consists of a box with two compartments that were separated by a guillotine door.…”