Morphine, the most used compound among narcotic analgesics, has been shown to be endogenously present in different mammalian/invertebrate normal tissues. In this study, we used mice that cannot make dopamine due to a genetic deletion of tyrosine hydroxylase specifically in dopaminergic neurons, to test the hypothesis that endogenous dopamine is necessary to endogenous morphine formation in vivo in mammalian brain. When dopamine was lacking in brain neurons, endogenous morphine was missing in brain mouse whereas it could be detected in brain from wild type rodent at a picogram range.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Forensic Med
October 2004
Carbon monoxide is a toxic gas with potentially lethal action, which forms as a result of incomplete combustion in conditions where there is a lack of oxygen and which, therefore, is present in varying percentages in environments where fire develops. In addition to carbon monoxide, other factors such as cyanide may contribute or might actually be the primary cause of a subject's demise. In cases of exposure to both substances, the role of cyanide as a toxic/lethal agent in death by asphyxiation is still not clear: some authors attribute a primary action to such a gas in causing the demise, others consider carbon monoxide to be the only cause of the lethal event.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Morphine is the most used compound among narcotic analgesics. Apart from its presence in the poppy plant, morphine has been shown to be endogenously present in different tissues of mammals and lower animals.
Material/methods: The presence of endogenous morphine and codeine was investigated by Gas Chromatography/ Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) in the brain of non human primate.