Addiction

Los Angeles, CA — In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of drug overdose deaths among Black Americans surpassed that of whites for the first time since 1999 — a sharp reversal of the situation a decade earlier, when rates were twice as high for whites as for Blacks, new UCLA research […]

Lemont, IL — Researchers use advanced technology and mice to study dopamine neuron structure, addiction and the brain’s ability to recover. A late 1980s commercial meant to combat drug addiction used a pair of frying eggs as a metaphor for the effects of drugs on the human brain. While researchers have long understood that there is […]

Amherst, MA — Mobile sensor expert Tauhidur Rahman, assistant professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences, is collaborating with colleagues at Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University on the project, funded by the National Science Foundation’s Smart and Connected Health program. “We have the technology to detect these craving moments and incorporate an intervention to […]

Salamanca, Spain — Abusive alcohol drinking considerably impacts human health. Alcoholism, better defined as Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD), includes a group of pathological entities related to alcohol-induced damage. Individuals with AUD exhibit compulsive alcohol drinking and negative emotional states when alcohol drinking ceases. In the most severe AUD forms, the individuals lose control over consumption […]

Blacksburg, VA — In first-of-their-kind observations in the human brain, an international team of researchers has revealed two well-known neurochemicals — dopamine and serotonin — are at work at sub-second speeds to shape how people perceive the world and take action based on their perception. The discovery shows researchers can continually and simultaneously measure the […]

Bethesda, MD — A National Institutes of Health-funded study found that people with substance use disorders (SUDs) are more susceptible to COVID-19 and its complications. The research, published today in Molecular Psychiatry, was co-authored by Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The findings suggest that health care providers should […]

Strassen, Luxembourg — Researchers at the Department of Infection and Immunity of the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) developed LIH383, a novel molecule that binds to and blocks a previously unknown opioid receptor in the brain, thereby modulating the levels of opioid peptides produced in the central nervous system (CNS) and potentiating their natural painkilling […]

Irvine, CA — A new study explains how cocaine modifies functions in the brain revealing a potential target for therapies aimed at treating cocaine addiction. The study was published this week in Cell Reports. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have demonstrated that a key receptor for dopamine, called D2 (D2R), intervenes in the mechanism […]

Charleston, SC — A team of National Institutes of Health-funded researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina has found that deactivating a stress-signalling system in a brain area known for motivation and emotion-related behaviours decreases binge drinking. The study, which was published online in February and is to appear in the May issue of Neuropharmacology, […]

Boston, MA — Two new studies from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) shed light on the relationship between obesity and the use of prescription opioids in the United States. One of the studies, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, finds that patients with higher body mass indices (BMIs) were up […]

Boston, MA — A new study shows that people with opioid use disorder who enter inpatient medically managed withdrawal treatment (detox) do not usually receive further treatment, including medication for opioid use disorder or additional inpatient treatment. Those who did receive further treatment with medication (methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone) or residential treatment were more likely […]

East Lansing, MI — Researchers at Michigan State University’s Precision Health Program have helped develop a fascinating new method for detecting the density of proteins in the blood – a method that could vastly improve the rate at which diseases are detected and diagnosed. The method, called “magnetic levitation,” or MagLev, had previously been used […]