Gabapentin enhances the analgesic response to morphine in acute model of pain in male rats

Whenever opioids as drug of choice result in inadequate analgesia, the combinational therapy would be the solution. In this study the co-administration of gabapentin with morphine is evaluated in acute model of pain. Therefore the antinociceptive effect of gabapentin (30 or 90mg/kg, s.c.) and morphine (0.5, 1 or 3mg/kg, s.c.) alone or in combination were measured by tail-flick test in intact adult male rats. Control rats received normal saline. Tail-flick latency time and Area Under Curve (AUC), as antinociception index were calculated for each group. There was not any significant difference between the antinociceptive response of 0.5mg/kg morphine and 30mg/kg gabapentin as compared to controls, but co-administration of these subanalgesic doses increased significantly AUC as compared to morphine alone. The co-administration of gabapentin with analgesic doses of 1 and 3mg/kg morphine had also increased significantly AUC. Therefore, gabapentin enhanced the antinociceptive effect of both analgesic and subanalgesic doses of morphine in a dose dependent manner. In conclusion co-administration of gabapentin with low doses of morphine produced therapeutic analgesia which could have important clinical application. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.