Category: From Newswise – Addiction

An Iowa State University researcher is an innovator in an emerging field: trauma-informed environmental design, in which designers work to understand their clients deeply and how their life experiences affect how they experience various environments today in order to better serve them in the design process.

The Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts, a private 501(c)(3) national grant-making foundation focused on ending the nation’s opioid crisis, today announced nine new grants totaling $10.9 million over three years to fund prevention programs for vulnerable children and families across the country.

Irvine, Calif., March 11, 2022 — A new University of California, Irvine-led study establishes important conceptual connections between the fields of circadian rhythms, metabolism, and addiction. Going beyond current studies on substance use disorders, which focus on the impact of addictive drugs on the brain, this new research highlights an existing connection between specific neurons and peripheral organs.

A study on smokers who drink heavily finds that a combination treatment of the drug varenicline and nicotine replacement therapy is more effective for smoking cessation, and that efforts to quit smoking can indirectly lead to reduced drinking rates.

A Rutgers expert discusses the rise of fentanyl deaths nationwide–and how they can be averted

Research at the University of Chicago has found that while taking small amounts of the psychedelic drug LSD — a practice known as “microdosing” — appears to be safe, it does not appear to significantly affect mood or cognitive function.

People at risk of developing alcohol use disorder show lower functional connectivity between brain regions involved in processing facial expressions. Future psychoeducation programs focused on improving social and emotional processing may help prevent alcohol use disorder.

Smokers were not early adopters of high nicotine e-cigarettes as cessation aids despite the rapid growth of sales of these products in 2017, report Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego researchers.

In the first study of its kind, researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Wake Forest University School of Medicine analyzed the trend of rising opioid/stimulant deaths by racial/ethnic groups and by state. Findings indicated that while overdose deaths from opioids and stimulants rose across all racial groups and across the country, opioid/stimulant deaths among Black Americans increased at more than three times the rate as non-Hispanic white people–particularly in eastern states.

Men with hypersexual disorder may have higher levels of oxytocin in their blood than men without the disorder, according to a small study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.