The pharmacology of opiates.

The opiate analgesic drugs today represent the more powerful instrument in the therapy of the pain and elicit their therapeutic action acting like endogenous substances, opioid peptides, natural ligands of the opioid receptors. They interact with specific receptors, physiologically present to central and peripheral levels to modulate different functions. Beside the most famous function concerning nociceptin sensibility, this system is also involved in the regulation of gastrointestinal, endocrine and independent functions, in the mechanisms of reward, dependence and in memory and learning processes. Opiates use is more and more diffusing in the practical analgesic and physicians should be able to modulate pain before that this becomes uncontrolled. The recent discovery of new opioid endogenous systems, like nociceptin, the development alternatives administration protocols and the discovery of new drugs with less addiction potentiality, opens the road to a better scientific understanding, to one more aimed therapeutic application and to more profitable and reassuring use of opiate drugs for the pharmacological control of pain. The expectations in this field of research are much high and future acquisitions will be able to help physicians to use the therapeutic instruments in the control of pain, in useful time before it is too late.