Talk:Opioid receptor

Symbols
Should this article really be using Greek symbols without a name? i.e. Mu, Delta, etc.? --Wulf 23:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

seriously you pretentious asswipes you should use the "mu" "kappa" and "delta" labeling for a less complicated search —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.33.153.140 (talk • contribs)

I agree the Greek symbols should be glossed with their spelled-out forms. Dforest 17:16, 5 March 2006 (UTC) Ah. I see now they are already spelled out in "Types of receptors". Perhaps they should be linked as well? It seems I am not the only one to overlook them. Dforest 17:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Greek lettering for the receptor types has nothing to do with being a "pretentious asswipe". but is in fact the correct way to denote the receptors. If you don't understand the Greek lettering, that doesn't make anyone but you an asswipe. If you are reading about pharmacology, hopefully you should understand that much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.109.42 (talk • contribs)

Well, I also think it's unnecessarily confusing. The receptors are referred to as spelled-out "mu" etc. at least as often as they are by the Greek letter. I've even seen an abstract where the mu receptors were referred to as "micro-opioid receptors". Took me a while to realize that someone had interpreted the letter mu as the metric prefix for micro- (or one millionth). But yes, I also missed the explanation in "types of receptors". I don't think it benefits the article at all to have the actual Greek letters used; it's not like it illuminates anything pharmacological. --Galaxiaad 20:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The Greek characters all redirect to what they are here in Wikipedia, so what is the problem? e.g. μ, δ & κ. It doesn't redirect to "micro-" or any other such, all a interested user has to do is click a hyperlinked letter (so we could bracket the letters before what kind of receptor it is such as μ-opioid) or they can cut & paste (ctrl+c / ctrl+v on most windows systems) the character into their Wikipedia search bar and it will reach the proper explanation as simply as (and with about as much computer knowledge needed for) browsing the page itself. 4.255.54.186 (talk) 17:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

sigma
since sigma recepters are activated by drugs unrealated to opiods shouldn't they recieve thier own page, rather than being part of the opiod recepter page.

Alkaloids
Under the mu receptor section, I amended the last sentence of the first paragraph. It listed Morphine, Hydrocodone, and Methadone as "opioid alkaloids". Morphine is an alkaloid. Hydrocodone and Methadone are not plant derived amines, so they aren't alkaloids. I inserted morphine and codeine in their place, as those are the only two plant derived opiate agonists. ~Drew 26 September 2006 15:26 (EST) ( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.109.42 (talk • contribs) )

Sigma receptors are distinct from opiod receptors
Although sigma receptors were historically linked to the opioid receptor, modern science has shown that they are unrelated. A quick Google search will give ample references to justify separating them from opiod receptors. The distinction between sigma-1 and sigma-2 receptors is pharmacologically defined and they appear to have very different biological roles. Sigma-2 receptors are believed to play a role in proliferation, since they are over-expressed in many tumor cell lines. Some sigma- ligands show promise as a anti-cancer agents. Sigma-1 antagonists can show anti-depressant action. Even though the endogenous ligands for these receptors are unknown, sigma-1 has been sequenced and sigma-1 knockout mice have been generated. These receptors deserve their own article.TriLAJy 21:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC) TriLAJy

So what do the recepters do?
THe article explained what these recepters are and what they are called, but it never said how they are important. What do they do? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.41.10.240 (talk) 20:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

you guys have the effects of mu1 and mu2 switched - now I don't know how to edit, so I'll leave that to you. its mu1 that causes euphoria, etc. it can be found on any basic pharma/neuro website —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.68.248 (talk) 09:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Could be simpler...
As a lay person, I have no idea what any part of this medical article means. Perhaps someone could add a simple summary previous to the article launching into technical details? --Pipedreambomb (talk) 00:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually its much better
I actually thought, on my read of March 14 2009, that it wasn't in bad shape now. Compared with lots of others; remember we are trying to deal with the constantly expanding sum of human knowledge. With the explanation of the notations for receptor types it is way better than some fields of learning that use the same greek letters to mean completely different things even in the same article.

A "Glossary of Terminology", as is often found in legislation, large contracts and good textbooks can never go astray to declare meanings formally. When one writes a computer program one declares ones variables and constants at the start, not just for machine readability but for humans trying to understand. I do think that a glossary of terminology should be accepted best practice in all articles that may be of interest to those without expertise in the field. Let's face it, if we are serious about making all knowledge accessible (and I hope we are ) then we must assume that all articles will be read by non-specialists.Celsius100 (talk) 03:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Get In Mah Belly!
I thought it had long been established that the linings of the digestive tract, particularly the intestines, contained the largest quantities of opiate receptors in the human body (with greatly proliferated quantities in opiate dependant individuals). It's been a while since I immersed myself in the research, but I'm almost certain the extensive muscle protraction (smoothing out) of the intestinal walls was shown to be a result of the increased activity in these mu(μ) receptor clusters. At the time of my study, it was yet to be determined if the constipation seen with most opiate use (therapeautic or otherwise) was a digestive chemical disruption caused by the abnormal receptor activity or the near cessation of muscle activity in the tract (or some combination of the two).K10wnsta (talk) 09:00, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

opioid receptor history
Could someone tell us who discovered the opioid receptors and when please. Dtownxxx (talk) 17:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Definition Confusing?
Hello. I admit I have no background in pharmacology, and very little in molec biology. But in trying to research opiods and opiod receptors on wiki, opiods are defined as substances that bind to opiod receptors. I think, OK, so what are opiod receptors? But opiod receptors are defined as G-protein receptors that have opiods as ligands! ??? Am I just missing something here? Can someone with expertise please clarify, and help to give some insight into the classification of these compounds/receptors that do not resort to circular definitions? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.100.89.89 (talk) 13:09, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, I can try to explain that. Please think of it this way. The receptors are proteins that are in the membrane on the outside of the cell, with part of the receptor protein on the outside of the cell, and part on the inside of the membrane. The part on the outside has a binding site, to which the opioid peptides bind. That's what is meant by saying that the opioids are ligands. When those ligands bind to the receptor, they activate the receptor protein. That causes the part of the receptor that it inside the cell to interact with another kind of protein, called a G-protein, and the G-protein, in turn, does things inside the cell that cause the cell to respond to the opioid. So the receptor is a receptor for opioids, that uses G-proteins to mediate its effects – with opioids outside the cell, and the G-proteins inside. Those things will become much clearer if you take a class on biochemistry and/or pharmacology. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:18, 4 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks for your response, but that was not what I was getting at. I understand the basics of G-protein coupled receptors and whatnot. My problem is with the basic definition and classification of these compounds and receptors. The definitions, as presented, are circular. Opiods are defined as compounds that bind to opiod receptors. But opiod receptors are defined as receptors that have opiods as ligands! This is like answering the question, "What is a doctor?" with the response "Well, a doctor is someone who sees patients". And then answering the subsequent question, "Well, what is a patient?" with the response, "a patient is someone who sees a doctor". These two responses gives us no information about what DEFINES a patient or a doctor!


 * Can anyone please help to give a precise definition of what an opiod or an opiod receptor is, without resorting to circular definitions that in the end give no useful information?


 * Thanks for your help. This is driving me crazy! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.124.131 (talk • contribs) 04:31, June 19, 2013‎


 * The opioids were known long before their receptors. The problem here is the first sentence of the opioid article. While this sentence is true, it is possible to provide a basic definition of opioid without immediately referring to the receptor (see for example ). Boghog (talk) 06:32, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I have attempted to make the definition less circular in this edit. Is this any better? Boghog (talk) 06:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry that I misunderstood the question! I think that Boghog's approach makes sense, and I hope that it solves the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

citation style
I was NOT changing the style ... I was filling in information which was missing/obscured by the format used. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 18:04, 29 December 2013 (UTC) --Wondering why you did not just roll back all of my edits rather than tinkering with them. That would have been more expeditious. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 18:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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