Can we use an innocuous stimulus to replace methadone maintenance therapy for opioid dependence?

Abstract

In most countries, methadone maintenance is the first widely used opioid replacement therapy to treat heroin dependence, and it remains the best-researched treatment for this problem. However, tolerance, dependence or even deaths usually develop with repeated doses or increasing in dosage. So it is necessary to solve this problem if possible. According to the conditioned immune response (CIR) based on the classical conditioning, learning can be established by repetition training that paired a conditioned stimulus (CS) with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) for some time, and then similar or better effects can be performed by re-exposure to the CS alone, or to the combination the CS and a reduction in the UCS. So we speculate that if methadone as an UCS paired with an innocuous CS (such as electroacupuncture etc.) could establish a conditioned response, then it is quite likely that methadone maintenance therapy will be replaced by using the CS alone or the combination of the CS and a reduction in methadone. By pairing the administration of methadone with a CS in an appropriate fashion, it may be possible to reduce the amount of methadone required, thereby minimizing both toxicity and cost.

• Authors: Di Liu, Deyu Hu, Xianjun Jiang
• Journal: Medical hypotheses (Med Hypotheses) Vol. 74 Issue 1 Pg. 50-1 (Jan 2010) ISSN: 1532-2777 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 19733009 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• Methadone

Topics

• Animals
• Conditioning, Classical (physiology)
• Disease Models, Animal
• Electroacupuncture (methods)
• Humans
• Immune System
• Learning
• Methadone (therapeutic use)
• Models, Biological
• Models, Theoretical
• Opioid-Related Disorders (rehabilitation)