Receptores opioides até o contexto atual

background and objectives: due to the objective of the outpatient setting and to routinely used drugs, this study aimed at reviewing and updating the knowledge about opioid receptors and worked as a study complement after a lecture presented to team members. contents: we have reviewed from historical aspects to most recent developments about opioid receptors, in addition to describing subtypes and action mechanisms. for such, pubmed-indexed references were queried. conclusion: after reviewing current literature data, we have concluded that there is still a lot to be researched about the topic, aiming at safer drugs, and new biomolecular techniques are still needed.