Opioid overdoses are a major public health issue in the U.S., killing tens of thousands of people every year. The medicine naloxone, which is available as an over-the-counter nasal spray or given by injection, has saved countless lives by rapidly reversing opioid overdoses. But in blocking opioid receptors in the brain, naloxone causes severe withdrawal symptoms, including pain, vomiting and agitation.
Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, including Brian Ruyle, a research instructor and first author, and Jose Moron-Concepcion, the Henry Elliot Mallinckrodt Professor of Anesthesiology, have discovered a promising new way to reverse an overdose without such side effects in rats, by targeting opioid receptors outside of the brain. The findings open the door to the development of new medications that can reverse overdoses as quickly as naloxone with fewer withdrawal symptoms.
