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The Critique
Summary
The article “Morphine-Tolerant Mice Exhibit a Profound and Persistent Cardioprotective Phenotype” written by Peart and Gross describes the experiment conducted by the researchers and its effects. The experiment aimed at the revelation of the impact of morphine on mice and their cardiovascular system, especially heart. The research involved morphine-tolerant mice as the test group and mice that got placebo as the control group. The test group of mice got morphine on the regular basis and then morphine was withdrawn, whereas the control group got placebo on the regular basis with the following withdrawal of placebo from the regular consumption by the mice. Researchers suggested that morphine can influence the work and functioning of the heart as well as other organs and the cardiovascular system of mice. Researchers supposed that morphine will have a negative impact on the health of mice and their hearts and cardiovascular system. In terms of the experiment, the researchers implanted morphine and placebo pellets into mice of the test and control group respectively. After that the mice were withdrawn from morphine and placebo after the substantial exposure of mice to the impact of morphine and placebo. The next step in the research involved exercising of mice’s hearts and mice were subjected to 25 minutes of ischemia and 45 minutes of reperfusion. In the result of the experiment, morphine-tolerant mice exhibited a substantially faster and easier recovery compared to mice consuming placebos. As a result, the researchers concluded that the chronic exposure to morphine results in a profound and persistent cardioprotective phenotype. In other words, morphine can contribute to the development of cardioprotective phenotype as the experiment with morphine-tolerant mice shows.
Strengths of the article
The article “Morphine-Tolerant Mice Exhibit a Profound and Persistent Cardioprotective Phenotype” reveals very important facts about the use and impact of morphine on the cardiovascular system of mice. In this respect, it should be said that the use of morphine-tolerant mice exposed to the substantial impact of morphine in the experiment is a very important element of the research which makes its outcomes reliable. In fact, this is one of the major strengths of the research because it shows that the subjects of the research were exposed to a substantial impact of morphine. Therefore, there is little, if any, doubts that the changes that occurred to the mice consuming morphine were directly or indirectly provoked by morphine. At this point, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the impact of morphine exactly on the health of mice was the primary concern of the researchers. In addition, the researchers used the control group to minimize doubts concerning the impact of morphine on mice’s health. The difference between morphine-tolerant mice and mice consuming placebo reveals clearly the impact of morphine on mice’s health, especially on their cardiovascular system.
Furthermore, the experiment focused on the specific organ, heart, which was under the study and researchers did not dispersed their attention on the overall impact of morphine on the health and body of mice. This means that researchers studied in details the changes that occurred to the heart and cardiovascular system of mice after the intensive exposure to the impact of morphine and its further withdrawal. Unlike previous researches, the article “Morphine-Tolerant Mice Exhibit a Profound and Persistent Cardioprotective Phenotype” is very specific in regard to the impact of morphine on the heart and cardiovascular system of mice.
Weaknesses of the article
On the other hand, the high level of attention of researchers to the heart and cardiovascular system of mice involved in the experiment may be viewed as the weakness because the focus on the heart and cardiovascular system has withdrawn the attention of researchers from other organs. What is meant here is the fact that morphine could have influenced other organs but heart or it could lead to changes in the functioning of mice’s body. The aforementioned changes could affect the functioning of heart and lead to the changes and results revealed by the researchers. Therefore, the researchers should probably expand the scope of their research.
Furthermore, the researchers insist on the persistent effect of morphine for they conclude that morphine leads to the development of the persistent cardioprotective phenotype. However, the study does not really provide detailed information on the long-lasting effects of morphine and exposure of mice to the impact of morphine. What is meant here is the fact that the researchers did not conduct the in-depth research to define clearly the long-lasting effects of the impact of morphine on mice and their cardiovascular system. The experiment was rather short-running and it does not reveal long-lasting effects of the exposure of mice to the impact of morphine.
Future directions of work
Nevertheless, the study conducted by Peart and Gross is very important and opens new perspectives for the further research in the field of the impact of morphine on the health. First of all, it is still important to reveal long-lasting effects of the exposure of mice to the impact of morphine. In fact, it is still unclear whether the changes and trends revealed by the researchers are long-lasting or probably they are just short-run effects of the consumption of morphine by mice. Secondly, the further research should focus on the extrapolation of effects of morphine identified by Peart and Gross on the health of humans. To put it more precisely, the further research should find out whether the impact of morphine on human health and on human cardiovascular system specifically is the same or probably it is different from the impact of morphine on the health and cardiovascular system of mice involved in the experiment conducted by Peart and Gross. Furthermore, the further research should focus on the impact of morphine on other organs and systems but heart and cardiovascular system because it can help to reveal other effects of the morphine consumption as well as it can change the findings of the study conducted by Peart and Gross in case of substantial changes in other organs and systems that may affect the heart and cardiovascular system under the impact of morphine.
Conclusions
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the study “Morphine-Tolerant Mice Exhibit a Profound and Persistent Cardioprotective Phenotype” conducted by Peart and Gross is very important in regard to the better understanding of the impact of morphine on heart and cardiovascular system. The research is very helpful for the further researches and its findings can be tested and used in other researches. At the same time, the study “Morphine-Tolerant Mice Exhibit a Profound and Persistent Cardioprotective Phenotype” stimulates researchers to pay more attention to the impact of morphine on specific organs and systems. Moreover, researchers can extrapolate the experience of Peart and Gross and model their experiment to reveal the impact of morphine on the health of humans and their cardiovascular system.

 
References
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