The present study demonstrates that chronic Morphine treatment produces fundamental changes in the ErbB receptor network of human breast cancer cells that are characterized by quantitative alterations in the abundance of individual ErbB receptors, alterations in ErbB dimer formation and the introduction of an autocrine loop that redirects Heregulin-stimulated ERK1/2 activation from ErbB1/ErbB3 to ErbB1/2-heterodimers. This evidence concerns the gene NRG1 and breast cancer.