ABSTRACT
The literature on all aspects of opioid tolerance and dependence is too extensive for a chapter of this magnitude. Additionally, understanding the changes that occur in multisynaptic pathways cannot progress very far until the adaptive processes occurring in the neurons directly affected by opioids are more thoroughly understood. For these reasons, this chapter is confined to an analysis of the possible mechanisms of opioid tolerance and dependence at the level of the individual neuron. There have been a number of reviews in recent years that address this topic and/or the more global topic of tolerance and dependence at the level of the whole organism. Examples are Chapman and Way (1980), Collier (1980), Herz and Schulz (1982), Nicoll (1982), Duggan and North (1983), Martin (1983), Woolverton and Schuster (1983), Goldstein and James (1984), Zieglgànsberger (1984), Koob and Bloom (1988), McFadzean (1988), Johnson and Fleming (1989) and Christie (1991).
