serotonin2A
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2014
- Messages
- 1,354
serotonin2a's essentially correct about this: binding affinity and efficacy are only part of the picture, pharmacokinetics looming large in particular.* However, I'm seeing tianeptine's binding as being just one order of magnitude weaker than oxycodone's, the latter being a pretty strong opioid...so it still seems plausible that tianeptine functions as a week opioid (but that this activity could still plausibly prove key in its subjective effects).
*in some sense, both binding affinity and efficacy are abstractions from qualitatively unique interactions between ligand and active site, resulting change in receptor geometry, and following signaling cascade, reducing such processes to singular quantitative indicators.
ebola
You're right that it's probably a safe bet that tianeptine isn't as strong an opioid as oxycodone. But pinpoint said that tianeptine couldn't cause an opioid high, and I don't think the binding data implies anything of the sort. Even weak opioids like pentazocine and meperidine can cause an opioid effects. More importantly, tianeptine has reportedly been abused for it's purported opioid effects and seems to relieve opioid withdrawal.