This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, mental health, treatment. The source abstract begins by describing: “Forty percent of people with bipolar disorder (BD) develop alcohol use disorder (AUD), with co-occurring AUD substantially worsening the course of BD.”
Translational Psychiatry • 03 Jun 2026 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, nicotine, brain science, craving. The source abstract begins by describing: “Chronic alcohol use has important effects on the glutamate system.”
Key finding: These findings provide human evidence consistent with a robust preclinical literature supporting mGlu5 receptor drugs as pharmacotherapies for AUD.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 12 Sept 2020 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, cannabis, brain science, treatment. The source abstract begins by describing: “Current treatments for adolescent alcohol use disorder (AUD) are mainly psychosocial and limited in their efficacy.”
Key finding: Future studies can use these findings to conduct larger, well-powered studies within adolescents with AUD.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 06 Mar 2023 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, cannabis, brain science, craving. The source abstract begins by describing: “Novel treatment evaluation for youth with alcohol use disorder (AUD) is needed.”
Neuropsychopharmacology • 11 Jun 2025 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, genetics, mental health. The source abstract begins by describing: “Somatostatin (SST) neurons have been implicated in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety, but their role in substance use disorders, including alcohol use disorder (AUD), is not fully characterized.”
Key finding: Together these data revealed an SST-mediated microcircuit in the PL that modulates the inhibitory dynamics of pyramidal neurons, a major source of output to subcortical targets to drive reward-seeking behaviors and emotional response.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 10 Jun 2021 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, dopamine, brain science, genetics. The source abstract begins by describing: “Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a chronic relapsing brain disorder characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol consumption despite adverse social, occupational, or health consequences.”
Key finding: This work represents a step towards fulfilling the unmet need for a reliable method of treating severe AUD through cell-type-specific control with clinically available neuromodulation tools.
Scientific Reports • 28 Dec 2024 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, genetics, mental health. The source abstract begins by describing: “Genome wide association and animal studies have implicated genetic variations in CHRNΑ5, encoding the α5 subunit-containing nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α5*nAChRs), as a risk factor for developing alcohol use disorders (AUDs).”
Key finding: IPN GABAergic neurons expressing α5*nAChRs play a key role in limiting both EtOH drinking and motor impulsivity.
Translational Psychiatry • 06 Nov 2024 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, animal study. The source abstract begins by describing: “The transition to alcohol use disorder (AUD) involves persistent neuroadaptations in executive control functions primarily regulated by the medial prefrontal cortex.”
Key finding: In conclusion alterations in PL synaptic activity were strongly associated with individual addiction scores, indicating their role as potential markers of the behavioral manifestations linked to AUD psychopathology.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 16 May 2024 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, genetics, treatment. The source abstract begins by describing: “Alcohol misuse is common in many societies worldwide and is associated with extensive morbidity and mortality, often leading to alcohol use disorders (AUD) and alcohol-related end-organ damage.”
Key finding: Our data are intriguing given the prominent role of glutamate signaling in brain and liver and might provide an important target for therapeutic intervention.
Molecular Psychiatry • 02 Dec 2021 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, genetics, animal study. The source abstract begins by describing: “Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is characterized by compulsive drinking, which is thought to be mediated by effects of chronic intermittent ethanol exposure on the dorsal striatum, the input nucleus of the basal ganglia.”
Key finding: These data provide important clues as to the impact of ethanol on striatal biology and provide a key resource for future investigation.
Molecular Psychiatry • 16 Apr 2025 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, withdrawal, mental health. The source abstract begins by describing: “Alcohol use disorders can be driven by negative reinforcement.”
Key finding: Altogether, these data support the relevance of microtubules as a therapeutic target for the treatment of AUD.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 20 Jan 2023 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on opioid, alcohol, dopamine, brain science. The source abstract begins by describing: “The mechanisms contributing to alcohol use disorder (AUD) are complex and the orexigenic peptide ghrelin, which enhances alcohol reward, is implied as a crucial modulator.”
Key finding: Collectively, our data show that DAG attenuates alcohol-related responses in rodents, an effect opposite to that of ghrelin, and contributes towards a deeper insight into behaviors regulated by the ghrelinergic signaling pathway.
Translational Psychiatry • 04 Jul 2024 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “Neuroendocrine tolerance to alcohol, i.e., a blunted cortisol response to alcohol, has been linked to Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (VmPFC) alcohol cue reactivity and relapse risk in severe Alcohol Use Disorders (AUDs), but its role in the development of…”
Key finding: Thus, neuroendocrine tolerance in BD may be associated with increased incentive salience of cues and contribute mechanistically to increased alcohol consumption seen in the development of AUDs.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 16 Sept 2023 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, dopamine, brain science, withdrawal. The source abstract begins by describing: “Rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg) GABA neurons exert a primary inhibitory drive onto midbrain dopamine neurons and are excited by a variety of aversive stimuli.”
Key finding: Overall, the present results reveal that the RMTg-VTA-Acb pathway plays a crucial role in the depression-like behavior in animals undergoing alcohol withdrawal, further advocating the RMTg as a potential therapeutic target for alcoholism.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 31 Mar 2019 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, withdrawal, relapse, mental health. The source abstract begins by describing: “Adolescent alcohol exposure increases the risk of developing alcohol use disorders (AUDs), yet the mechanisms responsible for this vulnerability remain largely unknown.”
Key finding: These studies demonstrate long-lasting, sex-dependent phenotypes produced by AIE and suggest pharmaceutical interventions for alcohol use and comorbid disorders may be more effective if designed with sex differences in mind.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 08 Apr 2020 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, relapse, mental health. The source abstract begins by describing: “For most psychiatric disorders, including alcohol use disorder (AUD), approved pharmacological treatments are limited in their effectiveness, and new drugs that can easily be translated into the clinic are needed.”
Key finding: It could also well be that animal models of AUD might be unable to fully capture the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs and that only future large-scale clinical trials will be able to demonstrate the efficacy of psychedelics as a new treatment option for AUD.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 05 May 2020 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, nicotine, brain science, mental health. The source abstract begins by describing: “Schizophrenia (SZ) is frequently concurrent with substance use, depressive symptoms, social communication and attention deficits.”
Key finding: These results have heuristic value and advocate specific approaches to refine available treatment strategies for comorbid conditions in schizophrenia.
Translational Psychiatry • 18 May 2020 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, craving, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “The Neural Craving Signature (NCS), a machine learning derived neuroimaging biomarker, differentiates individuals with from those without substance use disorders (SUDs), but has not been evaluated for predicting clinical outcomes.”
Key finding: These findings provide initial support for the NCS as a predictor of clinical outcomes in AUD.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 25 Feb 2026 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, brain science, withdrawal, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “BDNF plays a crucial role in shaping the structure and function of neurons.”
Key finding: Together, our data suggest that BDNF in a small ensemble of vlOFC-to-DLS neurons may gate alcohol drinking behaviors by attenuating habitual alcohol seeking.
Neuropsychopharmacology • 09 Nov 2025 • Research
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This article may help explain addiction science through research on alcohol, cocaine, brain science, relapse. The source abstract begins by describing: “Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing disorder of compulsive drug use.”
Key finding: Future studies of such neural activity-based cellular units (neuronal ensembles/memory engram cells) for relapse-suppression can be used to identify alternate targets for addiction medicine through functional characterization of anti-relapse mechanisms.
Nature Communications • 02 Sept 2019 • Research
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