Curated News: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

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People with chronic pain who take opioids have trouble finding multimodal pain care; insurance and provider education changes are needed, experts say.

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Scientists have long used community advisory boards to engage communities and provide feedback on studies, but this model has limitations. Now, Wistar Institute researchers are sharing how a more inclusive model for community engagement can lead to deeper insights and greater community participation in HIV research.

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New research shows that drinkers with alcohol use disorder display the same level of fine motor and cognitive impairment as light drinkers when consuming their usual excessive amount.

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Men were significantly more vulnerable than women to overdose deaths involving opioid and stimulant drugs in 2020-2021, according to a new study analyzing data from across the United States.

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Despite getting “the munchies”, people who frequently use cannabis are leaner and less prone to diabetes than those who don’t. University of California, Irvine researchers have now uncovered a possible explanation for this paradox – and it’s not good news.

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Leveraging the HEALing Communities Study infrastructure, researchers are testing whether there is an association between fentanyl test strip use and overdose risk reduction behaviors among people who use drugs over a 28-day observation period. The Stay Safe Study will be in Kentucky, Ohio and New York.

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A study, led by University of Oregon neuroscientist Shawn Lockery, points to worms as a useful tool for understanding more about the many roles that cannabinoids naturally play in the body. And it could help researchers develop better drugs that target this system.

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U.S. middle and high schools with the most students taking prescription stimulants to treat ADHD also had, overall, the highest percentage of students who misused prescription stimulants within the past year.

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An online “e-health” program helped more people with chronic pain reduce their opioid medications and pain intensity than a control group that had only regular treatment in a recent clinical study.

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New research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis identifies a common genetic signature that may increase a person's risk of developing substance use disorders. The work eventually could lead to universal therapies to treat multiple substance use disorders and potentially help people diagnosed with more than one.

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In a new study, University of California, Irvine researchers found that exposure to the compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a component of cannabis, at a young age could lead to depleted ovarian follicles and matured eggs in adulthood by nearly 50 percent.

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A new study from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has found that a brief stigma intervention that specifically targets people with HIV who inject drugs was effective in increasing engagement in substance use care as well as improving their ART adherence.

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Analysis reveals similar changes in the brain’s functioning in both humans and mouse models

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There has been a 1,107.01 percent increase in the number of people with medical cannabis cards in Florida (2018 to Jan. 27). One key reason is because many people believe cannabinoids – plant derived, medicinal, and synthetic or chemically engineered – are safe to use. A study shows that 386 people died in Florida as a result of cannabis use; of these, 258 cases were caused by synthetic cannabis. Nearly 88 percent were men; 28 percent of deaths were in those ages 45 to 54, compared to 9 percent in those ages 8 to 24. Nearly 99 percent of individuals using cannabis and synthetic cannabis died from accidents.

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UC San Diego School of Medicine study shows cannabis-related emergency department visits among older adults are on the rise with high risk for adverse effects of cannabis use for ages 65 and older.

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Researchers found that using buprenorphine to treat opioid-use disorder during pregnancy may result in better outcomes for the baby than methadone.

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Giving some homeless mothers with young children a place to live may do little to help them if it is not combined with support services, a first-of-its-kind study showed.

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Lowering the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels may reduce smoking without worsening mental health in smokers with mood or anxiety disorders, according to College of Medicine researchers.

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Growing up in a socioeconomically disadvantaged household may have lasting effects on children’s brain development, a large new study suggests. Compared with children from more-advantaged homes and neighborhoods, children from families with fewer resources have different patterns of connections between their brain’s many regions and networks by the time they’re in upper grades of elementary school. One socioeconomic factor stood out in the study as more important to brain development than others: the number of years of education a child’s parents have.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a pathway in the brains of mice that is activated when the animals see other mice scratching, but that pathway does not run through the visual cortex.

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Clemson geneticists Trudy Mackay and Robert Anholt will work to discover why some people become addicted to drugs while others don't.

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New UCLA-led research suggests certain gut bacteria -- including one that is essential for a healthy gut microbiome – differ between people who go on to acquire HIV infection compared to those who have not become infected. The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal eBioMedicine, suggest that the gut microbiome could contribute to one’s risk for HIV infection, said study lead Dr.

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Johns Hopkins Carey Business School faculty, along with School of Medicine colleagues, will create a cutting-edge pathway for substance use disorder researchers to develop new treatment options thanks to a $1.6 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Fast data processing of overdose deaths, which have increased in recent years, is crucial to developing a rapid public health response. But the system now in place lacks precision and takes months. To correct that, UCLA researchers have developed an automated process that reduces data collection to a few weeks.

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Over $2 million from the NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse will help neuroscientists in the IU Gill Center for Biomolecular Science research the impact of cannabis use during adolescence.

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Researchers at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a way to help more patients who want to stop smoking. The successful strategy involves using electronic medical records to help identify smokers when they visit their oncologists and offering help with quitting during such visits.

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A new study suggests that antidepressant use by mothers during the first trimester of pregnancy does not increase the chances of epilepsy and seizures in babies. The research is published in the May 11, 2022, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Pain experts and patient advocates had expressed concern that these laws may restrict access to opioid treatment for people with chronic pain without substituting effective non-opioid alternatives.

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In a follow-up study, researchers report that the substantial antidepressant effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy, given with supportive psychotherapy, may last at least a year for some patients.

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A study in mice led by UCLA researchers shows that removing chemical messengers in the brain that are involved in both wakefulness and addiction may make withdrawal from opioids easier and help prevent relapse.

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The University of Texas at El Paso will develop a sustainable public health intervention to suppress human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in people who use drugs in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border region. The initiative will be funded by a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

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Electronic cigarettes with cigarette-like nicotine delivery may help some people stop smoking cigarettes, according to a new study by Penn State College of Medicine and Virginia Commonwealth University researchers.

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University of Florida researchers are developing a new artificial intelligence tool that will help clinicians identify patients at high risk for opioid use disorder and overdose.

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Thanks to a new $16 million, five-year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health, Case Western Reserve University is launching a multi-institutional research effort dedicated to deepening understanding of the relationship between substance use and HIV.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine was awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to explore the potential impacts of psilocybin on tobacco addiction.

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An analysis of electronic health records of nearly 580,000 fully vaccinated people in the United States found that while the risk of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection among those with substance-use disorders was low overall, it was higher for people who misuse substances such as alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and opioids.

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Research will further shed light on the effects of environmental stressors on the developing brain--beginning before birth and following through the first ten years of life.

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A new $3.1-million, four-year grant co-led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York could help African American and Latinx youth living with HIV.

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While many people focus on the role of drugs in overdose deaths, a recent study shows that deaths where drugs were a contributing cause are also on the rise.