Opioids News and Research

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An opioid is a chemical that works by binding to opioid receptors, which are found principally in the central nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract. The receptors in these two organ systems mediate both the beneficial effects and the side effects of opioids.

Psychological treatment provides potent and durable relief for chronic back pain, study finds

Rethinking what causes pain and how great of a threat it is can provide chronic pain patients with lasting relief and alter brain networks associated with pain processing, according to new University of Colorado Boulder-led research.

29 Sep 2021

Study finds rise in methamphetamine-involved overdose deaths from 2015 to 2019

Overdose deaths involving methamphetamine nearly tripled from 2015 to 2019 among people ages 18-64 in the United States, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.

22 Sep 2021

New slow-release system mimics nature to provide long-lasting local anesthesia

Site 1 sodium channel blockers such as tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin are small-molecule drugs with powerful local anesthetic properties.

14 Sep 2021

Enhanced recovery after surgery program helps reduce opioid prescriptions after lung surgery

Lung surgery patients who utilize a comprehensive, evidence-based enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) program require fewer opioid prescriptions when discharged and this effect was sustained over the 4-year study period, according to research presented today at the 18th Annual Perioperative and Critical Care Conference from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

10 Sep 2021

Marijuana use among college-age adults remains at historically high levels in 2020

Marijuana use continued to rise among college students over the past five years and remained at historically high levels among same-aged peers who are not in college in 2020, according to survey results from the 2020 Monitoring the Future (MTF) panel study.

8 Sep 2021

Link discovered between brain’s opioid system and food craving triggered by external stimuli

Brain regulation of feeding behavior traits has remained incompletely understood. In their latest study, researchers at the Turku PET Centre, Finland, discovered a connection between the function of the opioid system and food craving triggered by appetitive external stimuli.

2 Sep 2021

Study uses novel technology to map the brain circuitry of spirituality

Scientists have long suspected that religiosity and spirituality could be mapped to specific brain circuits, but the location of those circuits remains unknown. Now, a new study using novel technology and the human connectome, a map of neural connections, has identified a brain circuit that seems to mediate that aspect of our personality. The work appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.

31 Aug 2021

Mobile telemedicine unit found to be effective in treating opioid use disorder in rural areas

Rural regions in the U.S. have been disproportionately affected by the opioid epidemic, while also having the fewest number of programs to treat opioid use disorder.

28 Aug 2021

NIH HEAL Initiative leverages the strengths of communities to address opioid public health crisis

An article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association highlights the results of numerous strategies through which the National Institutes of Health's Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, is finding scientific solutions to address the nation's opioid crisis.

26 Aug 2021

People with childhood trauma feel more euphoric when using morphine

People who experienced childhood trauma get a more pleasurable 'high' from morphine, new research suggests.

25 Aug 2021

From Uber vouchers to patient advocates: What it takes to increase ER addiction treatment

For years, Kayla West watched the opioid epidemic tear through her eastern Tennessee community. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, she treated people with mental illness but felt she needed to do more to address addiction.

25 Aug 2021

Study suggests a balanced approach to developing safer opioid analgesics

Opioids are powerful painkillers but their use is hindered because patients become tolerant to them, requiring higher and higher doses, and overdoses can cause respiratory depression and death.

24 Aug 2021

Study finds significant increase in opioid-associated cardiac arrests

A nationwide US study has shown that the rate of opioid-related cardiac arrests has steeply risen and is now on par with the rate of cardiac arrest from other causes. The research is presented at ESC Congress 2021.

23 Aug 2021

Researchers use residues in wastewater to study illicit drug consumption

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home orders and other restrictions drastically affected how people lived and worked, resulting in social isolation and economic instability. Now, researchers show that some people turned to a variety of drugs for relief. Using wastewater analysis, the team identified a spike in consumption of easily abused prescription opioids and anti-anxiety sedatives, while some illicit drug use plummeted, between March and June 2020.

23 Aug 2021

People cannot perceive decrease in body temperature when exercising, study finds

In a study published this month in Physiology & Behavior, research teams at the University of Tsukuba, led by Takeshi Nishiyasu, and at Niigata University of Health and Welfare, led by Tomomi Fujimoto, have found that, when exercising, people cannot perceive decreases in their core body temperature caused by the cold as well as they can when they are resting. This research has implications for recreational activities in colder climates, such as hiking and skiing.

20 Aug 2021

Children and young adults are frequently exposed to unsafe opioid prescriptions, study suggests

Children and young adults who have pain from surgery, dental care and other conditions are often prescribed opioids.

19 Aug 2021

New AHA Presidential Advisory addresses opioid use and its effects on heart and brain health

The misuse of opioids in the United States continues to lead to high rates of dependency as well as a staggering number of deaths due to overdose.

19 Aug 2021

The newest disease detection tool for covid and beyond: Poop

Since reopening campus at the University of California-San Diego last summer, university officials have relied on the tried-and-true public health strategies of testing and contact tracing. But they have also added a new tool to their arsenal: excrement.

16 Aug 2021

Study finds altered brain gene expression patterns in people with opioid use disorder

The epidemic of opioid abuse affects millions of people worldwide, but researchers know surprisingly little about the molecular changes caused by opioids in the human brain.

10 Aug 2021

Vitamin D supplementation could reduce opioid doses in palliative cancer treatment

Patients with vitamin D deficiency who received vitamin D supplements had a reduced need for pain relief and lower levels of fatigue in palliative cancer treatment, a randomized and placebo-controlled study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden shows.

5 Aug 2021