Cancer-induced bone
pain is described as dull, aching ongoing
pain. Ongoing
bone cancer pain was characterized after intratibial injection of
breast cancer cells in rats.
Cancer produced time-dependent bone remodeling and tactile
hypersensitivity but no spontaneous flinching. Conditioned place preference (
CPP) and enhanced
dopamine (DA) release in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell was observed after peripheral nerve block (PNB) selectively in
tumor-bearing rats revealing nociceptive-driven ongoing
pain. Oral
diclofenac reversed
tumor-induced tactile
hypersensitivity but did not block PNB-induced
CPP or NAc DA release.
Tumor-induced tactile
hypersensitivity, and PNB-induced
CPP and NAc DA release, was blocked by prior subcutaneous implantation of a
morphine pellet. In
sham rats,
morphine produced a modest but sustained increase in NAc DA release. In contrast,
morphine produced a transient 5-fold higher NAc DA release in
tumor bearing rats compared with
sham morphine rats. The possibility that this increased NAc DA release reflected the reward of
pain relief was tested by irreversible blockade of rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) μ-
opioid receptors (MORs). The rACC MOR blockade prevented the
morphine-induced transient increased NAc DA release in
tumor bearing rats but did not affect
morphine-induced effects in
sham-operated animals. Consistent with clinical experience, ongoing
cancer pain was controlled by
morphine but not by a dose of
diclofenac that reversed evoked
hypersensitivity. Additionally, the intrinsic reward of
morphine can be dissociated from the reward of relief of
cancer pain by blockade of rACC MOR. This approach allows mechanistic and therapeutic assessment of ongoing
cancer pain with likely translation relevance.