Orphanin FQ acts as an anxiolytic to attenuate behavioral responses to stress

摘要

Orphanin FQ (OFQ, Nociceptin) is a re- cently discovered 17-amino acid neuropeptide that is struc- turally related to the opioid peptides but does not bind opioid receptors. OFQ has been proposed to act as an anti-opioid peptide, but its widespread sites of action in the brain suggest that it may have more general functions. Here we show that OFQ plays an important role in higher brain functions because it can act as an anxiolytic to attenuate the behavioral inhibition of animals acutely exposed to stressful/anxiogenic environmental conditions.