More kappa-opioid receptors in women.

[RhythmSpring]

So this study says that women have about 5 times as many kappa-opioid receptors as men.

What would this mean in terms of how Salvia affects men and women differently? I do know one girl who says that Salvia does not affect her one iota. But she could be an anomaly.

Does this mean that women would require more Salvia to get the same effect? less? Would it be more than a difference in intensity, but also other effects?

 

[corpus callosum]

The study cited focusses on the receptor density in the spinal cord only ie says nothing about differential receptor density between the sexes in the brain.Estrogens have been demonstrated to act as a neurotransmitter (or a facilitator of neurotransmission) and upon heterodimerization of opioid receptors of different classes (mu, delta, kappa) including in the limbic system which will produce inter-sex variations, certainly at a histochemical level.

The opioid receptors are complicated and pretty fascinating, and the concept of heterodimerization renders the classic view of straightforward receptor-agonist interaction as rather limited. Heres a good paper which considers this aspect of the opioid receptors:

Opioid receptor subtypes: fact or artifact?

Abstract. There is a vast amount of pharmacological evidence favouring the existence of multiple subtypes of opioid receptors. In addition to the primary c

bja.oxfordjournals.org