Acute and prolonged effects of clocinnamox and methoclocinnamox on nucleus accumbens dopamine overflow

The mu opioid antagonist clocinnamox (CCAM) insurmountably inhibits opioid self-administration. In contrast, CCAM’s prodrug, methoclocinnamox (MCCAM), acts as a weak partial agonist in this paradigm when given acutely and inhibits opioid self-administration for up to 5 days. In vivo microdialysis was employed to determine if these effects are paralleled in basal and opioid-stimulated dopamine (DA) overflow in the rat nucleus accumbens (NAC). When given acutely, CCAM (10 mg/kg SC) was essentially without effect. CCAM also markedly attenuated the overflow of DA induced by heroin (0.5 mg/kg SC; 200% of DA baseline) 24 h later. In contrast, MCCAM (10 mg/kg SC) acutely increased NAC DA overflow to 200–245% baseline within 30 min. NAC DA remained at this elevated level for the whole 3-h period of the experiment. Even after 24 h, NAC DA overflow of MCCAM-pretreated animals remained elevated at 165% of VEH-treated animals. Administration of heroin did not result in any further elevation of NAC DA release under these conditions. Thus, the suggested therapeutic profile of MCCAM, i.e., an acute partial agonistic reinforcing effect followed by antagonism of the reinforcing effects of subsequently abused opioids, was confirmed in NAC DA overflow, a neurochemical correlate of the reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse. The most parsimonious explanation for MCCAM’s effect on NAC DA overflow is that it acted as an essentially irreversible partial agonist. Received: 3 September 1996 / Final version: 7 May 1997