Dr. O'Brien, the Vice-Chair of Psychiatry at Penn Medicine, Is Available for Interviews on Drug Addiction and the Neurobiology of Relapse
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
More than two in five people receiving buprenorphine, a drug commonly used to treat opioid addiction, are also given prescriptions for other opioid painkillers – and two-thirds are prescribed opioids after their treatment is complete, a new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study suggests.
Fathers who use cocaine at the time of conceiving a child may be putting their sons at risk of learning disabilities and memory loss. The findings of the animal study were published online in Molecular Psychiatry by a team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
A tiny snail may offer an alternative to opioids for pain relief. Scientists at the University of Utah have found a compound that blocks pain by targeting a pathway not associated with opioids. Research in rodents indicates that the benefits continue long after the compound have cleared the body.
How easy do adolescents think it is to get heroin? A Saint Louis University researcher examines how their perceptions have changed from 2002 to 2014.
The average news consumer might be surprised to learn that the economic costs of alcohol abuse far exceed those related to illegal drug use. In California, alcohol abuse cost $129 billion in 2010, $3,450 per California resident. That was almost three times the $44 billion bill for illicit drug use. The largest cost contributors were mortality, impaired driving, and violence. The costs varied greatly from city to city and county to county.
At a glance: New research shows great variation among clinicians’ opioid prescribing practices and links physician prescription patterns to patients’ risk for subsequent long-term opioid use. Being treated by an emergency room physician who prescribes opioids more frequently increases a patient’s risk of long-term opioid use and other adverse outcomes. The results suggest that differences in clinicians’ prescribing habits may be helping to fuel the opioid epidemic sweeping the United States.
A number of animal studies and a small human pilot study have revealed that cannabinoids, extracts of cannabis legally sold as medical marijuana, could reduce cravings and ease withdrawal symptoms in heroin users.
Cocaine use has long been tied anecdotally to higher-than-usual rates of impulsive behavior, including risky sex, but the tie-in has been difficult to study with any scientifically controlled rigor.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that deep brain stimulation (DBS) can greatly reduce the compulsion to use heroin in standard rat models of addiction.
Nationwide, the mortality rate from deaths caused by drugs, alcohol and suicide rose 52 percent from 2000 to 2014, according to new research from the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Most of the increase was driven by a surge in prescription opioid and heroin overdoses.
Adolescents who are violent toward their romantic partners are also more likely to think about or attempt suicide, carry a weapon, threaten others with a weapon and use drugs or alcohol than peers in non-violent relationships, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
For people with opioid use disorder receiving medication treatment with buprenorphine, a telepsychiatry approach—using videoconferencing as an alternative to in-person group sessions—provides similar clinical outcomes, reports a study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
Alcohol use can be found in suicide deaths and unintentional deaths due to injuries such as those from motor vehicle collisions (MVCs). The authors of this study argue that it is important to distinguish between the roles that alcohol may play in the two different types of deaths. Consequently, they compared postmortem toxicology results for alcohol and other drugs, alone and in combination, in suicide and MVC deaths.
A study of more than 100,000 surgical cases at University of Virginia Health System found patients’ pain scores improved even as doctors gave fewer opioids. As health officials across the U.S. look for ways to combat a opioid addiction crisis, UVA researchers believe their findings highlight one way to address the problem.
Significantly more people with mental illness and substance use disorders had insurance coverage in 2014 due to the expansion of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but many barriers to treatment remain, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.
People who use cocaine regularly are at high risk of coronary artery disease. A study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), reports that stopping or reducing cocaine use can potentially reverse the process of coronary atherosclerosis. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
Study shows how high estrogen release during the estrus cycle increases the pleasure felt via the brain’s reward pathway
In Colorado and other states, establishing specialized controlled substances pharmacies is proving to be a workable and practical solution to help prevent medication abuse and assure that legitimate pain patients will continue to receive the medication they need.
Health care blogger Laura Offutt MD writes about Teen Health Week and what health care professionals can do to promote the week that starts January 9.
In a survey of almost 2,000 people who said they had had a past negative experience when taking psilocybin-containing "magic mushrooms," Johns Hopkins researchers say that more than 10 percent believed their worst "bad trip" had put themselves or others in harm's way, and a substantial majority called their most distressing episode one of the top 10 biggest challenges of their lives.
A new Northwestern Medicine study offers a bleak assessment in a rare look at the outcomes of delinquent youth five and 12 years after juvenile detention. Central to poor outcomes for the youth post detention are stark and persistent racial, ethnic and gender disparities, according to the massive study that began in the mid-1990s.
Drug misuse is so prevalent in Tijuana and East Los Angeles that community clinics in those areas should routinely screen for it.
Identifies key findings of the Federation of State Medical Board's 2016 State Medical Board Survey. Telemedicine, opioid prescribing, the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC), physician reentry into practice and medical marijuana were found to be the top five most important regulatory topics to state medical boards in 2016.
The Addiction Medicine Foundation today announced the accreditation of two additional fellowship programs to train addiction medicine physicians. The Foundation has supported the establishment of 44 addiction medicine fellowship training programs to date, based at major medical schools and teaching hospitals across North America, and is committed to establishing a total of 125 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited addiction medicine fellowship programs by 2025.
Residential “in-patient” treatment for substance abuse is a preferred option for those seeking to recover. However, relapse within the first year following discharge ranges from 37% to 56%. Engagement in aftercare improves this statistic; only about half use outpatient care, and even fewer stick with it. Researchers explored the factors that hinder and help individuals transition from long-term residential substance abuse treatment centers to the community.
For the first time, researchers have determined the potential cost and benefits of opening a supervised injection facility for people who inject drugs in the United States. The study, released today, found that a single facility in San Francisco could generate $3.5 million in savings.
In a paper published online Dec. 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Washington researchers report on a statistical approach called "tree bootstrapping" can help social scientists study hard-to-reach populations like drug users.
Researchers have created a microfluidic device that could lead to faster, more sophisticated, and lower cost methods for screening drugs for liver toxicity – before the drugs are moved into human trials.
Teenagers' use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco declined significantly in 2016 at rates that are at their lowest since the 1990s, a new national study showed.
The number of babies born with drug withdrawal symptoms from opioids grew substantially faster in rural communities than in cities, a new study suggests.
While the daily dose of methadone for opiate addiction has declined in recent years, facilities run by African-American directors were more likely to provide low methadone doses than facilities run by managers of other races and ethnicities.
Researchers at Indiana University's Biocomplexity Institute have developed a virtual model of the human liver to better understand how the organ metabolizes acetaminophen, a common non-prescription painkiller and fever-reducer used in over-the-counter drugs such as Tylenol. The software could be used to help reduce the risk of liver failure and overdose death in this and other drugs.
More than 1,000 medications, with acetaminophen being the most common, have been associated with drug-induced liver injury (DILI). An article in AACN Advanced Critical Care discusses the clinical impact of DILI and reviews the medications that most frequently cause it.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a vaccine that blocks the pain-numbing effects of the opioid drugs oxycodone (oxy) and hydrocodone (hydro) in animal models.
Stefan Kertesz, M.D., says a better understanding of what caused and what sustains the opioid epidemic is needed among policymakers and physicians to best serve patients and address the crisis.
A Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine researcher has found that addiction treatment results improved when teens in a residential program stopped smoking.
Research from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions suggests the approach to preventing alcohol and drug use by some adolescents should begin in early childhood.
Siblings bear responsibility for the spread of problem behaviors. Identifying the exact nature of that influence has proven difficult, because behavior problems in siblings can also be traced to friends, shared genetics and shared experiences with parents. Evidence describing how problem behaviors spread between siblings has been scarce – until now, thanks to a first-of-its-kind longitudinal study on identical and fraternal twins.
Overdose of prescription pain killers may seem like a grown-up problem, but children are increasingly being hospitalized for opioid poisoning.
Mothers in therapy for drug and alcohol use recover faster if their children take part in their treatment sessions, according to a first-of-its-kind study.
Children who are sexually abused are nearly five times more likely to inject drugs in adulthood as those who are not — while children who witness violence are about three times more likely — according to new research released today at the American Public Health Association’s 2016 Annual Meeting and Expo in Denver.
– A new paper in Biological Psychiatry reports that chronic cannabis users have reduced levels of an enzyme called fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH). The enzyme has been considered for treatment for cannabis dependence because it breaks down substances made in the brain that have cannabis-like effects, called endocannabinoids, rendering them inactive.
This is the first quantitative study of business manager encounters with drug use which suggests overdose recognition and naloxone training, combined with the operation of supervised injection facilities, could save lives.
Research from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions has found the abuse of prescription drugs by college students can play a role in negative sexual events such as sexual assault and regretted sex.
Bringing the world one step closer to when destructive addiction-fueling memories can be erased with a single treatment, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have received a National Institutes of Health grant through the Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network and the National Institute of Drug Abuse.