Expanding Opioid Receptor Pharmacology: From Pain Control to Novel Therapeutic Applications in Neurobiology, Immunology, and Psychiatry
A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Discovery, Development and Delivery".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2026) | Viewed by 924
Special Issue Editor
Interests: peptides; peptidomimetics; nitrogen heterocycles; conformational analysis; docking; opioids; integrins; addiction; cancer; biomaterials; diagnostic devices; inflammation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Opioid receptors, long studied for their role in pain modulation, are now recognized as key players in a broad range of physiological and behavioral processes. Despite extensive research, the neural circuits, cell types, and dynamics underlying endogenous opioidergic modulation remain incompletely understood, particularly in contexts beyond nociception, such as motivation, stress, and reward. Recent findings suggest that opioid signaling can drive both adaptive and maladaptive behaviors, influencing outcomes in addiction, mood disorders, and chronic stress. The crosstalk between opioids, cannabinoids, and neuroimmune mechanisms further highlights their shared roles in pain and inflammation. New insights into sex-specific responses, epigenetic regulation, and the effects of prenatal opioid exposure deepen our understanding of individual variability in opioid responses. Additionally, novel in vivo tools are enabling real-time analysis of opioid receptor dynamics across brain networks.
Advances in target-guided drug design and AI-enabled discovery are yielding novel ligands, including biased agonists, partial agonists, peripherally acting agonists, and allosteric modulators with improved safety profiles. Concurrently, research into dynorphin–KOP and N/OFQ-NOP systems is expanding the landscape of potential analgesics that avoid the liabilities of traditional opioids.
Together, these advances are reshaping our view of the opioid system—from a narrow focus on analgesia to a multifaceted therapeutic target spanning pain, mood, addiction, and beyond.
Prof. Dr. Luca Gentilucci
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- opioid
- pain
- mood
- stress
- addiction
- neuropeptides
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