Opioid-specific brain connectivity dynamics distinguish analgesia from secondary effects: Studies in male mice

Abstract

The µ-opioid receptor (MOP) is a critical pharmaceutical target that mediates both the therapeutic benefits and adverse effects of opioid drugs. However, the large-scale neural circuit dynamics underlying key opioid effects, such as analgesia and respiratory depression, remain poorly understood, hindering the development of safer analgesics. Here, we present a multimodal experimental framework that integrates functional ultrasound imaging through the intact skull with behavioral and molecular analyses to investigate opioid-induced large-scale functional responses and their physiological relevance in awake, behaving male mice. Administration of major opioids—morphine, fentanyl, methadone, and buprenorphine—elicited robust, dose- and time-dependent reorganization of functional brain connectivity (FC) patterns, with magnitude scaling according to MOP agonist efficacy. This opioid-specific functional fingerprint is marked by decreased FC between the somatosensory cortex and hippocampal/thalamic regions and increased bilateral FC within the somatosensory cortex. Notably, this fingerprint was attenuated following tolerance induction and abolished by pharmacological or genetic MOP inactivation. Through power Doppler spectral analysis and lagged correlation measurements, we show that morphine perturbs temporal FC dynamics and the propagation of brain-wide oscillatory activity, disrupting critical-state dynamics. Importantly, we identify a dissociation between fast, transient processes—such as cerebral blood volume changes, locomotion, and respiratory depression—and slower processes driving FC reorganization, analgesia, and sustained MOP activation. This study provides mechanistic insights into opioid-induced network reorganization, establishes FC alterations as a reliable biomarker of opioid efficacy, and offers a framework for advancing the development of analgesic compounds with improved therapeutic windows and reduced side effects.