Dr. Anne Murphy discovered a method on Oct. 3 to help prevent the human body from becoming accustomed to the effects of morphine.
Murphy, an associate professor at Georgia State, and senior graduate student Lori Eidson conducted research on what causes morphine, a drug used to manage pain, to wear off over time and what could be done to sustain the effects of addiction.
“Targeting this particular receptor could change the way chronic pain is managed, specifically, enhancing the effects of morphine and eliminating the need for dose escalation over time,” Murphy said. “Our results have exciting implications for the clinical treatment and management of chronic pain.”
Murphy and Eidson’s experiment consisted of blocking a certain receptor in the brains of rats that were physically suffering with a great deal of pain. The blocking of this receptor led to a longer-lasting morphine effect.
The findings are a huge step toward helping the proper usage of not only morphine, but other painkillers as well.
“My hope is to first increase awareness that the likelihood of people taking opioid for chronic pain management have a very small likelihood of becoming addicted to their medicine, and secondly, help determine what family of drugs [is] effective in modulating pain in females and the elderly,” Murphy said.
Morphine and other painkiller abuse is an issue among college students throughout the country. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 90 percent of all poisoning deaths are caused by painkillers.
Past research has proven that morphine may also prompt certain cells in the brain to suppress the strength of morphine, making addiction more likely.
Dr. Amanda Divin and Dr. Keith Zullig, from Western Illinois University Department of Health Sciences, focused on the psychological hold morphine can have on humans. The two researchers did a survey of 26,600 randomly selected college students from 40 universities, which revealed that students who reported feeling hopeless, sad or depressed were 1.18 to 1.43 times more likely to report using opioid painkillers like morphine.
“Addiction to painkillers is a tragedy and highlights how antiquated pain management is,” Eidson said. “Humans have been using morphine to treat pain for centuries, but not much has changed. As basic science leads the way to more specific drug targets. I hope that negative side effects including addiction will no longer be an issue.”
Painkillers also appear to be very accessible, according to Robert Jamison, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
“It’s partly an issue of availability,” he said. “More people have access to these medicines today than 15 or 20 years ago.”
Jamison added that on college campuses, students sharing these pills perceive them as safe because they have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration or tested and prescribed by a doctor.
Yet Jamison said students are living in a time when individuals are taking advantage of lenient doctors who are prescribing more opioids then ever before.
“Dependence on opioids is a serious and growing health concern right here in metropolitan Atlanta. Whether the addiction is to prescription painkillers or heroin, opioid addiction affects every socioeconomic segment in the city,” Dr. Tommie Richardson, an addiction medicine specialist at Ridgeview Institute, said.
Dr. Kyle Frantz, associate professor for Georgia State’s Neuroscience Institute, highlights how prescription drugs can seep into young people’s lives.
”I saw peer pressure in college. What is likely more challenging today is access to drugs and delayed onset of responsibility and independence for some young people, both contributing to continued alarming rates of drug abuse especially among people aged 18 to 24 in the United States,” he said.
