Discussion:
The Mechanism of Opioid Tolerance
Observation: People who are treated for pain with morphine often need larger doses over time to inhibit their pain. This is called opioid tolerance. You laboratory is interested in understanding the cellular mechanism underlying this decrease in morphine's effects, particularly whether G-protein signaling or beta-arrestin signaling is most important. You have any experimental technique available to you. In one page, state a hypothesis on your proposed mechanism, describe an experiment(s) that would est your hypothesis, give your expected results and suggest an alternative experiment if you do not get your expected results.