Chronic morphine exposure affects contrast response functions of V1 neurons in cats

Retrospective review of neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants treated for neonatal abstinence syndrome

“…It is unknown whether postnatal opioid treatment increases the risk for visual problems, although one study found that infants who required pharmacologic treatment for NAS had more nystagmus than those who were exposed but did not require treatment3. In animal models, opioids are known to affect the development of the visual cortex 23 , 24 , which may be the underlying mechanism for the visual issues seen in infants exposed to opioids in utero.…”

GABA increases stimulus selectivity of neurons in primary visual cortices of cats chronically treated with morphine

“…It has been indicated that the dendritic length and spine density of both pyramidal and spiny stellate neurons are decreased as a result of chronic morphine exposure (Li et al, 2007b). The visual response properties of both LGN and V1 neurons, including spontaneous activity (He et al, 2005a,b), visually evoked response (He et al, 2005a,b), signal-tonoise ratio (He et al, 2005a,b) and contrast response function (Song et al, 2012), have also been found to be greatly degraded in cats chronically exposed to morphine. Our results in the present study indicate that orientation selectivity of V1 neurons is also significantly affected by chronic morphine exposure.…”