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Review
. 2023 Feb 15:17:1109480.
doi: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1109480. eCollection 2023.

The disruptive relationship among circadian rhythms, pain, and opioids

Jacob R Bumgarner  1 , Evan W McCray  1 , Randy J Nelson  1
Affiliations
Review

The disruptive relationship among circadian rhythms, pain, and opioids

Jacob R Bumgarner et al. Front Neurosci. .

Abstract

Pain behavior and the systems that mediate opioid analgesia and opioid reward processing display circadian rhythms. Moreover, the pain system and opioid processing systems, including the mesolimbic reward circuitry, reciprocally interact with the circadian system. Recent work has demonstrated the disruptive relationship among these three systems. Disruption of circadian rhythms can exacerbate pain behavior and modulate opioid processing, and pain and opioids can influence circadian rhythms. This review highlights evidence demonstrating the relationship among the circadian, pain, and opioid systems. Evidence of how disruption of one of these systems can lead to reciprocal disruptions of the other is then reviewed. Finally, we discuss the interconnected nature of these systems to emphasize the importance of their interactions in therapeutic contexts.

Keywords: circadian rhythm disruption; circadian rhythms; opioid analgesia; opioids; pain.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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