Jaymin Upadhyay1,2, Julie Anderson1,2, Adam J. Schwarz2,3, Richard Baumgartner2,4, Alexandre Coimbra2,5, Jaime Knudsen1,2, Ed George2,6, James Bishop1,2, Sanjay Keswani2,3, Brigitte Robertson2,7, Rudy Schreiber2,7, David Bleakman2,3, Richard Hargreaves2,8, Lino Becerra1,2, David Borsook1,2
1P.A.I.N. Group, Brain Imaging Center, Department of Psychiatry, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA, USA; 2Imaging Consortium for Drug Development, Belmont, MA, USA; 3Lilly Research Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN, USA; 4Biometrics Research Department, Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, NJ, USA; 5Imaging Department, Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, PA, USA; 6Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 7Sepracor Inc., Marlborough, MA, USA; 8Basic Neuroscience Department, Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, PA, USA
Blood-oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has previously been implemented to observe how specific therapeutics modulate the acute brain (CNS) response to noxious and innocuous stimuli. Buprenorphine (Buprenex) is a mixed opioid partial agonist and antagonist that has been shown to have analgesic and antihyperalgesic effects in humans. In this study, the modulatory effects of two doses of buprenorphine on the CNS response to innocuous and noxious stimulation were investigated with BOLD fMRI.