Administered i.p. to mice, the selective kappa receptor agonists U-50488H and spiradoline (U-62066) were more potent on the tail-flick than on the hot-plate analgesic assay. Both were more potent after i.s. rather than i.c. administration, a result consistent with earlier demonstrations that tail-flick analgesia is generally dependent upon spinal mechanisms. Intraspinal U-50488H was not effective in elevating rat tail-flick latencies. Both drugs increased the thresholds for cat spinal cord nociceptive neurons to respond to a noxious heat stimulus. However, maximal responses of spinal cord neurons to nociceptive stimuli were not altered. It is concluded that although spinal cord sites may be critical to kappa receptor analgesic mechanisms, the effects are quite distinct from spinal cord effects observed previously with classical narcotic analgesics.