Cravings & Relapse
Why cravings can return after months, how cues work, and why relapse risk can persist during recovery.
This crawlable research library turns AddictionTube’s research database into public topic pages and plain-English article summaries. Search engines and AI bots can now discover the science behind cravings, relapse, treatment, brain reward, substance use, and recovery support.
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Why cravings can return after months, how cues work, and why relapse risk can persist during recovery.
Research on opioid cravings, withdrawal, brain reward systems, treatment, relapse, and opioid-related risk.
Research on alcohol relapse, brain function, mental health, treatment studies, cognition, and long-term recovery.
Research on dopamine, reward learning, brain circuits, natural rewards, drug rewards, and motivation.
Research on cannabis use, withdrawal, psychosis risk, memory, adolescent brain development, and mental health.
Research on cocaine craving, relapse, stimulant use, genetics, reward circuitry, and treatment targets.
Research on adolescence, impulsivity, prevention, brain development, and early substance use trajectories.
Research on co-occurring mental health disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, psychiatric symptoms, and substance use.
Research on addiction treatments, recovery supports, medications, mindfulness, outcomes, and therapeutic targets.
Plain-English research pages for families trying to understand craving, relapse, compulsive use, and long-term support.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on cocaine, brain science, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “Cocaine use disorder represents a public health crisis with no FDA-approved medications for its treatment.”
Key finding: These findings suggest that gut bacteria, via their metabolites, are key regulators of drug-seeking behaviors, positioning the microbiome as a potential translational research target.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on opioid, alcohol, nicotine, brain science. The source abstract begins by describing: “Preclinical and human studies indicate psilocybin may reduce perseverant maladaptive behaviors, including nicotine and alcohol seeking.”
Key finding: We conclude that psilocybin reduces heroin relapse and highlight IL-17a signaling as a potential downstream pathway of psilocybin that also reduces heroin seeking.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on opioid, cocaine, brain science, craving. The source abstract begins by describing: “We recently reported that a conditioned stimulus (CS) memory retrieval-extinction procedure decreases reinstatement of cocaine and heroin seeking in rats and heroin craving in humans.”
Key finding: The UCS memory retrieval-extinction procedure has superior relapse prevention characteristics than the CS memory retrieval-extinction procedure and could be a promising method for decreasing relapse in human addicts.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on cocaine, dopamine, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “Relapse represents a consistent clinical problem for individuals with substance use disorder.”
Key finding: These results suggest that DA contributes to incubated cocaine seeking but the emergence of this role reflects changes in postsynaptic responsiveness to DA rather than presynaptic alterations.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on cocaine, brain science, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “Persistent susceptibility to cue-induced relapse is a cardinal feature of addiction.”
Key finding: Finally, using ex vivo whole-cell recordings from pyramidal neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex, we demonstrate that the disruption of DS-controlled cocaine seeking following infralimbic cortex microinjections of muscimol+baclofen is likely a result of suppression of synaptic transmission in the region via a presynaptic mechanism of action.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on cocaine, brain science, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “Relapse to drug seeking can be caused by exposure to drug-associated cues, provoking drug craving even after prolonged abstinence.”
Key finding: Altogether, these results indicate that AMPK activity in the NAc core is critical for the cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking, which may be mediated by mTORC1 and ERK1/2 signaling.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on opioid, withdrawal, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “Existing pharmacological treatment options for opioid use disorder (OUD) face challenges that limit their efficacy.”
Key finding: This review adopts a translational approach to achieve several aims: (1) to outline the fundamental theories of orexin system function and relate orexinergic dysfunction to the disordered motivation and withdrawal states that characterize OUD; (2) to provide an up-to-date evaluation of preclinical and clinical evidence bases supporting the efficacy of orexin receptor antagonism for the treatment of OUD; (3) to discuss key clinical considerations of repurposing DORAs for OUD treatment, including safety and side effects (i.e., respiratory depression, anhedonia, and risk for abuse); and (4) to highlight the ongoing clinical efforts to determine therapeutic efficacy and safety profiles of DORAs for use in OUD populations.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on cocaine, brain science, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “One of the greatest challenges in treating addiction is preventing relapse during abstinence.”
Key finding: Such work has the potential to identify new therapeutic targets and to further our understanding of experience-dependent plasticity in the adult brain under normal circumstances and in the context of addiction.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on cocaine, dopamine, brain science, craving. The source abstract begins by describing: “The authors show that rostral ventral pallidum projections to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are activated during cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking, and DREADD inhibition of these projections blocks this behavior.”
Key finding: This double dissociation in ventral pallidum subregional roles in drug seeking is likely to be important for understanding the mesocorticolimbic circuits underlying reward seeking and addiction.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on cocaine, dopamine, brain science, craving. The source abstract begins by describing: “Cocaine has actions in the peripheral nervous system that reliably precede—and thus predict—its soon-to-follow central rewarding effects.”
Key finding: These findings suggest that the conditioned peripheral effects of cocaine can contribute significantly to cocaine-induced (but not stress-induced) cocaine craving, and also suggest the cocaine cue as an important target for cue-exposure therapies for cocaine addiction.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on opioid, dopamine, brain science, withdrawal. The source abstract begins by describing: “Opioid abuse is a rapidly growing public health crisis in the USA.”
Key finding: Low-mGluR2 expression in the brain may therefore be a risk factor for the initial development of opioid abuse and addiction.
This article may help explain addiction science through research on opioid, relapse, treatment, animal study. The source abstract begins by describing: “Ibogaine and its main metabolite noribogaine provide important molecular prototypes for markedly different treatment of substance use disorders and co-morbid mental health illnesses.”
Key finding: As such, oxa-iboga compounds represent mechanistically distinct iboga analogs with therapeutic potential.