Morphine protects against methylmercury intoxication: a role for opioid receptors in oxidative stress?

ABSTRACT: Mercury is an extremely dangerous environmental contaminant responsible for episodes of human intoxication throughout the world. Methylmercury, the most toxic compound of this metal, mainly targets the central nervous system, accumulating preferentially in cells of glial origin and causing oxidative stress. Despite studies demonstrating the current exposure of human populations, the consequences of mercury intoxication and concomitant use of drugs targeting the central nervous system (especially drugs used in long-term treatments, such as analgesics) are completely unknown. Morphine is a major option for pain management; its global consumption more than quadrupled in the last decade. Controversially, morphine has been proposed to function in oxidative stress independent of the activation o

SUBMITTER: Costa-Malaquias A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4201572 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature