Several literature reports indicate that supraspinal cholinergic antinociception induced both directly, through muscarinic agonists, and indirectly, by enhancing ACh extracellular levels through cholinesterase inhibitors, is mediated by M 1 receptor stimulation, indicating that M 1 muscarinic receptor subtype plays an essential role in the modulation of pain perception (Bartolini et al., 1992;Iwamoto and Marion, 1993;Ghelardini et al., 1996;Naguib and Yaksh, 1997;Ghelardini et al., 2000). More recently, intracellular mechanisms involved in supraspinal muscarinic antinociception in a condition of acute thermal nociception in normal animals have been investigated. M 1 muscarinic receptors typically couple via the ␣ subunits of the G q/11 family to activate phospholipase C (PLC) (Caulfield and Birdsall, 1998), and the activation of PLC results in hydrolysis of phosphatidyl 4,5-bisphosphate and production of inositol-1,4,5 trisphosphate (IP 3 ) and diacylglycerol (DAG). The main effect of DAG is to activate protein kinase C; IP 3 mediates the release of calcium from intracellular stores by binding to its receptors (Berridge, 1993). The involvement of receptor-mediated activation of the PLC-IP 3 pathway in the increase in pain threshold produced by administration of cholinomimetics was directly demonstrated. The inhibition of the IP 3 synthesis by pretreatment with LiCl, and the blockade of IP 3 receptors (IP 3 R) by administration of the IP 3 R antagonist heparin, dose dependently prevented physostigmine and oxotremorine antinociception (Galeotti et al., 2003).The receptor that recognizes IP 3 was first characterized as a protein called P400 that was enriched in normal cerebella (Mikoshiba et al., 1997); two other types of IP 3 receptors were then cloned. The original IP 3 receptor was named type 1 IP 3 receptor (IP 3 R1), whereas the others were named type 2 IP 3 receptor (IP 3 R2) and type 3 IP 3 receptor (IP 3 R3) (Patel et al., 1999). IP 3 Rs are recognized as a protein family of tetrameric ligand-gated Ca 2ϩ channels that allow mobilization of intracellular Ca 2ϩ stores in response to activation of cell surface receptors linked to IP 3 generation (Berridge, 1993). IP 3 R monomers are large proteins with a calculated molecular mass of about 300 kDa and all three isoforms of IP 3 R share 60 -70% amino acid similarity (Taylor et al., 1999).The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of type 1, 2 and 3 IP 3 Rs in the intracellular mechanism of muscarinic antinociception at a supraspinal level. To this purpose, we inhibited the expression of each IP 3 receptor subtype by using antisense oligonucleotides targeting IP 3 R mRNA sequences that are unique in the mouse genome and therefore assured stringent target selectivity.