Researchers at WashU Medicine have identified a gene that may help explain why some individuals are more likely than others to develop opioid addiction. The study builds on human genetic studies sugge...

Rat study shows that introducing new objects in a nonsocial environment dampens fentanyl use over time and relapse-like behavior triggered by stress.

Un estudio en ratones prueba que es posible eliminar la sensación de dolor a la vez que se evita el riesgo de adicción de los opioides

Environmental enrichment (EE) reduces vulnerability to multiple drugs of abuse, yet its impact on fentanyl use and relapse-like behavior remains unclear. Here, we tested whether long-term, non-social,...

Persistent maladaptive drug-context associations are a key component of relapse vulnerability and pose a major obstacle in treating opioid use disorder. Although the dorsal hippocampus (dHPC) is criti...

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Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine have developed the first mouse model to replicate the disrupted sleep patterns seen in people with chronic pain.

Neuropsychopharmacology - Inflammatory pain in mice induces light cycle-dependent effects on sleep architecture

A new study in Neuron suggests that men may be biologically more vulnerable to misusing opioids like fentanyl in response to pain. The findings point to estrogen’s ability to suppress brain reward cir...

Exploring how sex differences regulate dopamine responses could inform novel interventions to prevent or treat substance use disorders.

It may not be necessary to get drugs into the brain to block the lethal effects of a fentanyl overdose...

Male – but not female – rats in chronic pain self-administer increasing amounts of fentanyl, which is prevented with estrogen treatment

Higginbotham et al. show that inflammatory pain increases opioid-evoked dopamine neuron activity to promote fentanyl use selectively in males. Ovarian hormones offer females protection, but estradiol’...

Blocking peripheral opioid receptors with naloxone methiodide sufficiently prevents and reverses fentanyl-induced cardiorespiratory depression without causing the aversive effects of naloxone in roden...

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