Jaymin Upadhyay1,2, Julie Anderson1,2,
Adam J. Schwarz1,3, Richard Baumgartner1,4, Alexandre
Coimbra1,5, Lauren Nutile1,2, James Bishop1,2,
Ed George1,6, Brigitte Robertson1,7, Smriti Iyengar1,3,
David Bleakman1,3, Richard Hargreaves1,5, Lino Becerra1,2,
David Borsook1,2
1Imaging Consortium for Drug
Development, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA, United States; 2P.A.I.N.
Group; Brain Imaging Center, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, United States; 3Lilly
Research Department, Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN, United States; 4Biometrics
Research Department, Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, NJ, United States; 5Imaging
Department, Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, PA, United States; 6Department
of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard
Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 7Sepracor, Inc.,
Marlborough, MA, United States
Buprenorphine
is commonly prescribed to treat pain.
We implemented blood oxygenated-level dependent (BOLD) functional MRI
to characterize and compare the effects of 2.0 mg (sublingual), 0.1 mg/70kg
(intravenous) and 0.2 mg/70kg (intravenous) doses of buprenorphine on the
central nervous system during pain processing and during the resting
state. During pain processing, the 2.0
mg (sublingual) and 0.2 mg/70kg (intravenous) doses significantly (p<0.01)
potentiated the BOLD response in regions such as the striatum, while
attenuated the BOLD response in somatosensory cortices. Furthermore, the resting-state connectivity
for sublingual and intravenous doses of buprenorphine were also altered among
structures that mediate pain processing.
Keywords