Several recent studies report that neurotransmitters that are critically involved in extinction in adult rats are not important for extinction in young rats. Specifically, pretest injection of the g-aminobutryic acid (GABA) receptor inverse agonist FG7142 has no effect on extinction in postnatal day (P)17 rats, although it reverses extinction in P24 rats as reported by Kim and Richardson in an earlier paper. Further, pre-extinction injection of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist MK-801 has no effect on extinction in P17 rats, whereas it impairs long-term extinction in P24 rats as per Langton and colleagues in an earlier work. These findings indicate that extinction in P17 rats is qualitatively different from extinction in older rats. The present study examines the involvement of the endogenous opioid system in extinction in the developing rat using systemic injections of the m-opioid receptor antagonist naloxone. Experiment 1 showed that injection of naloxone before extinction training disrupted the acquisition of extinction in both P17 and P24 rats. This effect was dependent on central rather than peripheral m-opioid receptors (Experiment 2), and neither pre-test nor post-extinction injection of naloxone had effects on extinction (Experiments 3 and 4). Taken together, these findings indicate that opioid neurotransmission, in contrast to GABA and NMDA activity, is critical for extinction acquisition across development.Pavlovian conditioned fear is typically acquired by pairing an initially neutral conditioned stimulus (CS; e.g., tone) with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US; e.g., shock). The formation of an association between the CS and the US is inferred when subsequent presentations of the CS elicits various conditioned fear responses (CR; e.g., freezing). These learned fear responses can subsequently be reduced by giving nonreinforced presentations of the CS-a process referred to as extinction. Fear extinction has received considerable attention over the past decade because of its theoretical importance and its obvious clinical implications for the treatment of various anxiety disorders (Davis and Myers 2002). Early models of associative learning suggested that extinction was due to the ''unlearning'' or ''erasure'' of the original CS-US association (e.g., Rescorla and Wagner 1972). However, it is now more widely accepted that the reduced CR following extinction reflects new learning of a CS-no US association that inhibits the expression of the original CS-US association (e.g., Bouton 2002). The primary evidence for this view comes from behavioral studies that show performance to an extinguished CS can recover without any retraining (e.g., spontaneous recovery, renewal, and reinstatement). Additionally, we know that extinction involves inhibition because reducing g-amino butyric acid (GABA) inhibitory activity by pretest injections of the GABA receptor inverse agonist FG7142 reverses extinction (Harris and Westbrook 1998). Finally, preextinction injection of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NM...