TY - JOUR
T1 - Cebranopadol reduces cocaine self-administration in male rats
T2 - Dose, treatment and safety consideration
AU - Wei, Huimei
AU - Zhang, Ting
AU - Zhan, Chang Guo
AU - Zheng, Fang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/8/1
Y1 - 2020/8/1
N2 - As a novel first-in-class potent analgesic acting as an agonist of multiple opioid receptors, cebranopadol showed high efficacy and good tolerability in a broad range of preclinical models and clinical trials related to pain. In the present study, to evaluate the efficacy and safety of cebranopadol as a potential treatment of cocaine dependence, we tested the effects of cebranopadol with single and repeated doses (25, 50, 75, or 100 μg/kg, oral gavage) using rat models of cocaine fixed-ratio (FR) self-administration (SA), cocaine progressive-ratio (PR) SA, and sucrose pellet SA. In single-dosing treatment paradigm, cebranopadol significantly and dose-dependently reduced cocaine SA under FR and PR schedules and suppressed food intake under FR schedule without causing apparent side effects. In repeated-dosing treatment scheme, i.e. daily administration of 25, 50, 75, or 100 μg/kg cebranopadol for a week, the similar reduction in cocaine intake was detected, while non-negligible complications/side effects were observed at repeated high doses (75 and 100 μg/kg). The observed side effects were similar to the common toxic signs elicited by heroin at high doses, although cebranopadol did not fully substitute heroin's discriminative stimulant effects in our drug discriminative tests. These results demonstrated that the most appropriate oral dose of cebranopadol to balance the efficacy and safety is 50 μg/kg. Collectively, although cebranopadol may serve as a new treatment for cocaine dependence, more consideration, cautiousness, and a clear optimal dose window to dissociate its therapeutic effects from opioid side effects/complications in male and female subjects will be necessary to increase its practical clinical utility.
AB - As a novel first-in-class potent analgesic acting as an agonist of multiple opioid receptors, cebranopadol showed high efficacy and good tolerability in a broad range of preclinical models and clinical trials related to pain. In the present study, to evaluate the efficacy and safety of cebranopadol as a potential treatment of cocaine dependence, we tested the effects of cebranopadol with single and repeated doses (25, 50, 75, or 100 μg/kg, oral gavage) using rat models of cocaine fixed-ratio (FR) self-administration (SA), cocaine progressive-ratio (PR) SA, and sucrose pellet SA. In single-dosing treatment paradigm, cebranopadol significantly and dose-dependently reduced cocaine SA under FR and PR schedules and suppressed food intake under FR schedule without causing apparent side effects. In repeated-dosing treatment scheme, i.e. daily administration of 25, 50, 75, or 100 μg/kg cebranopadol for a week, the similar reduction in cocaine intake was detected, while non-negligible complications/side effects were observed at repeated high doses (75 and 100 μg/kg). The observed side effects were similar to the common toxic signs elicited by heroin at high doses, although cebranopadol did not fully substitute heroin's discriminative stimulant effects in our drug discriminative tests. These results demonstrated that the most appropriate oral dose of cebranopadol to balance the efficacy and safety is 50 μg/kg. Collectively, although cebranopadol may serve as a new treatment for cocaine dependence, more consideration, cautiousness, and a clear optimal dose window to dissociate its therapeutic effects from opioid side effects/complications in male and female subjects will be necessary to increase its practical clinical utility.
KW - Addiction
KW - Cebranopadol
KW - Cocaine
KW - Drug discrimination
KW - Opioid
KW - Self-administration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084462363&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85084462363&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2020.108128
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2020.108128
M3 - Article
C2 - 32389751
AN - SCOPUS:85084462363
SN - 0028-3908
VL - 172
JO - Neuropharmacology
JF - Neuropharmacology
M1 - 108128
ER -