Category: From Newswise – Addiction

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.

A new study by researchers with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center shows Latino smokers on Medi-Cal are still not getting the cessation information they need to help them get treatment for tobacco addiction.

People who need to drink relatively high amounts of alcohol before feeling its effects, a genetically influenced risk factor for future heavy drinking and alcohol problems, may have differences in brain connectivity that impair their ability to interpret facial expressions and recognize their own intoxication, a new study suggests. The paper, in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, is believed to be the first to demonstrate differences in brain connectivity between people with low and high responses to alcohol. Varying levels of responses to alcohol — for example, how many drinks a person consumes before feeling intoxicated — are known to be related to neurobiological processing. Low responders, who drink more alcohol before feeling affected by it, are at greater risk of alcohol use disorder (AUD) than high responders, who feel the effects of fewer drinks. Scientists using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are exploring the possibility that low responders are less a

The accomplished researcher in addiction and substance use disorders also will serve as the Greg Brown Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and Cell Biology and as a tenured professor in the department of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School