For 30 years, NIDA Notes provided in-depth coverage of research findings on drug misuse and addiction. NIDA Notes was discontinued in 2021.
This is Archived content. This content is available for historical purposes only. It may not reflect the current state of science or language from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). For current information, please visit nida.nih.gov.
High School Seniors Report Alcohol- or Drug-Impaired Driving Experiences
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About one in three high school seniors has, in a 2-week period, either driven a vehicle after drinking alcohol or taking illegal drugs or ridden as a passenger with a...
Adolescent Rats Self-Administer More Nicotine Than Adults
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Studies comparing adolescent and adult rats have added to the evidence that the adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to nicotine addiction. Dr. Edward D. Levin and colleagues at the Duke...
New Tracer for Nicotinic Receptors Promises Improved Specificity
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Researchers at NIDA's Intramural Research Program have developed a radiolabeled compound for animal studies of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain. Tests in monkeys indicate that the new tracer readily...
Court Mandates Help Men With Antisocial Personality Disorders Stay in Treatment
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Men with co-occurring substance abuse and antisocial personality disorders may particularly benefit from judicially mandated addiction treatment. Such legal pressure has been shown to exert a positive effect on treatment...
Prenatal Nicotine Exposure May Damage Receptors That Influence Auditory Processing
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Some children of women who smoked during pregnancy experience subtle difficulties processing auditory information; for example, they may have more than average problems recognizing slightly garbled words or understanding speech...
Legal Pressure Increases Treatment Retention
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People who participated in substance abuse treatment on the recommendation or requirement of an attorney or criminal justice professional were more likely to stay in treatment than were people who...
Methamphetamine Abusers Show Increased Distractibility
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Long-term methamphetamine abuse appears to induce lasting impairment to brain cells whose activity underpins a person's ability to attend to significant stimuli and screen out distractions. In a recent NIDA-funded...
Stimulus Money Will Fund a Surge in Knowledge
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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, signed into law by President Obama on February 17, aims to restore the Nation to economic health. To establish conditions for lasting...
Damage to Brain Area May Immediately Halt Cigarette Addiction
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"My body forgot the urge to smoke." That's how one patient with damage to the insula, an area of the brain within the cerebral cortex, described the after effects of...
Cocaine Locks Rats Into Unrewarding Behaviors
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People initially take cocaine for pleasure, but for most chronic abusers, the high becomes progressively shorter and weaker, and negative social and economic consequences grow increasingly dire. Relationships hit the...
NIDA Initiates Pediatrics Symposium on Adolescent Health
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Adolescence and early adulthood are times of self-definition and increasing autonomy. They are also periods of heightened sensitivity to social influences and vulnerability to the onset of mental problems, including...
Research Addresses Needs of Criminal Justice Staff and Offenders
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NIDA established the Criminal Justice-Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS) project in 2002 to reduce substance abuse and recidivism among offenders following their release from jail or prison. CJ-DATS investigators in...
Lofexidine May Enhance Naltrexone Efficacy
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The anti-hypertensive medication lofexidine is used commonly in the United Kingdom and less often in the United States to alleviate symptoms of opiate withdrawal. Now, a pilot study by Dr...
Henry Yamamura Obituary
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Henry I. "Hank" Yamamura, an eminent neuropharmacologist, died September 4, 2008, after a long struggle with cancer. Even while ill, he continued his research and scholarly activities. Dr. Yamamura pioneered...
Fewer Young Adults Abuse Cocaine and Methamphetamine, National Survey Finds
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The percentage of young adults who said they were abusing cocaine or methamphetamine dropped substantially from 2006 to 2007, according to the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health...
Reducing Postpartum Drug Use
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In a recent clinical trial, a 20- minute computerized intervention reduced new mothers' drug abuse in the first 4 months postpartum. The computer software program, which was developed by Dr...
Brain Proteins Differ in Cocaine-Overdose Victims
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Scientists have found differences in protein concentrations in the brain pleasure centers of 10 people who died from cocaine overdose as compared with 10 people who did not abuse the...
Selenium Shows Promise as an Adjunct Therapy for HIV
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Daily selenium supplements could serve as a useful adjunct therapy for HIV infection by holding HIV-1 viral load in check and elevating levels of infection-fighting CD4 cells. A randomized controlled...
Nicotine Dependence is Linked With Mental Disorders in Pregnant Women
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The link between mental disorders and nicotine dependence that had been prviously observed in the general population also pertains to pregnant women, according to a U.S. survey that included 1,516...
Long-Term Cocaine Self-Administration Depresses Brain Activity
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Chronic exposure to cocaine depresses neural activity. Initially, the effect shows up mostly in the brain's reward areas. With longer exposure, however, neural depression spreads to circuits that form cognitive...
Imaging Studies Elucidate Neurobiology of Cigarette Craving
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One difference between a smoker and an ex-smoker is that the latter has successfully overcome cravings for tobacco. To learn how people achieve this feat, NIDA-funded researcher Dr. Arthur Brody...
High-Risk Drug Offenders Do Better With Close Judicial Supervision
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Adjusting the frequency of mandatory drug court monitoring sessions according to offenders' risk of lapsing into criminal activity, including drug abuse, can enhance program success rates while conserving resources, according...
New Vaccines Are Being Developed Against Addiction and Relapse
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Since the first vaccine, for smallpox, was developed more than 200 years ago, immunization has proven to be a powerful weapon in the fight against infectious disease. Today, NIDA-supported researchers...
NIDA Centers Raise Physicians' Awareness of Drug Abuse Issues
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NIDA has established four Centers of Excellence for Physician Information to increase physicians' awareness of NIDA-funded research on the medical consequences of drug abuse and addiction and to provide the...
Aripiprazole Prevents Rats From Resuming Cocaine Seeking
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The antipsychotic medication aripiprazole appears to reduce cocaine craving in small studies of addicted individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A recent NIDA-funded experiment suggests that aripiprazole may help not...
Methadone Reduces Rats' Cocaine Seeking
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Methadone may prove to be an effective treatment for cocaine as well as opioid abuse, if the results of a recent study with rats, funded by NIDA and the Canadian...
Optical Technologies Expand Vistas Into the Brain
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The brain, like an ocean, guards mysteries of the deep. Many of the structures and activities that make us what we are, mentally and emotionally, reside or occur far from...
New Technique Links 89 Genes to Drug Dependence
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After a person's first exposures to a drug, genes exert a major influence on whether he or she will go on to become dependent. Over the past decade, researchers painstakingly...
Immune System Plays Unexpected Role in Brain Development
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NIDA-supported scientists have demonstrated that the immune system participates in the shaping of brain circuits during a child's development. The finding represents a breakthrough in understanding how our early experience...
Research Breakthroughs in Drug Abuse Have Wide Applications in Other Fields
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Each of the innovative and exciting research achievements described in this special issue of NIDA Notes represents a benchmark advance in NIDA's work to reduce the health and social effects...
NIDA Bestows Prizes at International Science Fair
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To honor talented high school scientists who will produce the innovations of tomorrow and to foster their interest in addiction research, NIDA and Scholastic Corp. cosponsored the first Addiction Science...
Basic Science Discoveries Yield Novel Approaches to Analgesia
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For millennia, opioid medications have provided the most potent tools for pain relief. Yet, although they are the best we have, opioids fall short of being ideal analgesics: They have...
Linking NIDA to Researchers on a Global Scale
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Scientific opportunity and public health responsibility have no borders for NIDA, the world's largest supporter of research on drug abuse and its health and social consequences. Through its International Program...
Mice With Genetic Alteration Eschew Cocaine
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NIDA researchers have desensitized mice to cocaine by genetically altering their dopamine transporters—proteins that are a key target of cocaine—to resemble ones found in the brains of some insects. If...
Morphine-Induced Immunosuppression, From Brain to Spleen
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Morphine and other opioids suppress the immune system, the body's innate defense against infections. Because of this effect, doctors weigh the pain-relief benefits of opioids against the added risk of...
New Therapy Reduces Drug Abuse Among Patients With Severe Mental Illness
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A new intervention enhances prospects for substance abusers whose mental illness complicates the path to recovery. In a recent clinical trial, a 6-month course of Behavioral Treatment for Substance Abuse...
Reduced Longevity Among Male Heroin Abusers, 1962-1997
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Even before the era of HIV/AIDS, the lifespan of heroin abusers was drastically curtailed compared to that of the general U.S. population. A recent study looked at the fates of...
Intervention Improves Employment Outlook For Methadone Patients
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Assertive outreach and motivational techniques can enhance methadone patients' participation in vocational counseling and increase subsequent employment. In a study of 211 unemployed methadone patients at two facilities in New...
Morphine Speeds AIDS Onset in Monkeys
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Dr. Anil Kumar and colleagues at the Ponce School of Medicine, Puerto Rico, have discovered key ways in which morphine may accelerate the progression of AIDS: The drug increases both...
Methamphetamine Restricts Fetal Growth, Increases Lethargy in Newborns
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A NIDA-funded study found that newborns whose mothers abused methamphetamine during pregnancy showed higher rates of growth restriction compared with unexposed newborns. Dr. Barry M. Lester and colleagues at Brown...
Booklet Explains the Science of Addiction
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Clearing up common misconceptions and reducing the stigma associated with drug addiction are the goals of a new book from NIDA. Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction explains...
Animal Studies Elaborate Toluene's Effects
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Toluene, a solvent found in paint removers, glues, and other common household products, is often the first substance abused by young people, who inhale its dangerous fumes. A recent NIDA-funded...
Social Neuroscience Meeting Aims To Improve Prevention, Treatment
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Scientists and clinicians gathered in Rockville, Maryland, on October 1-2, 2007, to review initial research results from the burgeoning field of social neuroscience—the study of how neurobiology and the social...
NIDA Renames Addiction Journal
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NIDA's journal on addiction, formerly called Science & Practice Perspectives, is now being published as Addiction Science & Clinical Practice. The new name highlights the publication's goal of encouraging the...
Behavioral Problems Related to Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy Manifest Early in Childhood
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Many studies have established that a pregnant woman's smoking raises her child's risk of disruptive behavior disorders and of delinquency in the teen and young adult years, but its behavioral...
Neuroscience Blueprint Promotes Efficiency, Synergy
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In 2004, NIDA and 15 other NIH Institutes convened to address a challenge posed, in a sense, by an embarrassment of riches. In recent decades, neuroscientists had developed powerful new...
Epigenetics: The Promise of a New Science
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Recently, scientists have developed a more sophisticated understanding of the ways in which genetics influences a person's health. The complement of genes a person inherits at birth is, of course...
Teen Substance Abuse Continues to Decline
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Use of illicit drugs by students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades declined 24 percent over the past 6 years, according to the 2007 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey...
Sertraline Does Not Help Methamphetamine Abusers Quit
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In a recent NIDA-funded study, the antidepressant sertraline (Zoloft) made quitting methamphetamine harder. Prescribed to relieve depression during the methamphetamine withdrawal process, sertraline produced a number of unpleasant side effects...
Researchers Develop a New Tracer for Cannabinoid Receptor
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Cannabinoid receptors appear to play a role in several conditions—including schizophrenia, depression, obesity, and drug abuse—but a radiolabel has not been available for imaging them in the brain. Drs. Andrew...
Cocaine Can Mobilize Stored Dopamine
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Cocaine increases dopamine levels primarily by preventing the neurochemical from being transported back into its releasing cell, leaving more outside the neuron, where it contributes to the drug's euphoric effects...
Bupropion Reduces Meth's Subjective Effects and Cue-Induced Craving
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A small placebo-controlled trial produced evidence that the antidepressant bupropion may be useful for treating methamphetamine addiction. Drs. Thomas Newton and Richard De La Garza at the University of California...
Long-Term Cocaine Abuse Linked With Impaired Heart Function
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Long-term regular cocaine abuse impairs cardiac left ventricular function in African-Americans, say NIDA-funded researchers Dr. Shenghan Lai and colleagues at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Magnetic resonance imaging of heart...
Scientific Society Honors Dr. Kenner Rice's Research
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Dr. Kenner Rice, Chief of NIDA's Chemical Biology Research Branch, has received the 2007 Smissman Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award recognizes significant contributions to fundamental knowledge...
Researchers Report on Progress of NIDA's Southern Africa Initiative
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Research projects conducted under NIDA's Southern Africa Initiative help universities and other organizations in southern Africa build research capacity and infrastructure in the area of addiction, particularly drug-related HIV transmission...
Alcohol Abuse Makes Prescription Drug Abuse More Likely
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Men and women with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are 18 times more likely to report nonmedical use of prescription drugs than people who don't drink at all, according to researchers...
HIV Patients Show Better Immune Recovery With Early Initiation of HAART
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Among 655 men and women with HIV, CD4+ count at HAART initiation predicted subsequent recovery of this important immune system cell. Patients receiving HAART showed an improvement after 4 years...
Chromosome 17 Harbors Opioid Dependence Genes
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NIDA-funded investigators are homing in on the location of genes that may influence the risk of opioid dependence. Dr. Joel Gelernter, at Yale University School of Medicine, Henry Kranzler, at...
Chronic Cocaine Abusers Have Occult Insomnia in Early Abstinence
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Chronic cocaine abusers may feel they are sleeping better and better during early abstinence, but objective measures show the opposite happens. A team of NIDA-funded addiction and sleep researchers at...
Combination Treatment Extends Marijuana Abstinence
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Treatment that combines vouchers and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) may be more effective in keeping marijuana abusers abstinent in the longer term than vouchers-only and CBT-only programs. In a study by...
Not All Mesolimbic Dopamine Neurons Are Alike
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NIDA-supported neuroanatomists have shown that the neurons that deliver dopamine to two regions of the brain's mesolimbic reward system respond differently to opioids. The finding adds to scientists' evolving picture...
Exposure to Morphine During Early Adolescence Sensitizes Rats as Adults
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A study conducted at Emory University School of Medicine indicates that exposure to morphine during adolescence may increase sensitivity to the drug during adulthood. Drs. Stephen Holtzman and David White...
Study Links Anabolic Steroids to Brain Changes in Adolescent Female Mice
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Anabolic androgenic steroid (AAS) abuse, once largely limited to elite athletes, has spread to a wider population that includes adolescents along with adults, and girls as well as boys. While the psychological and behavioral consequences of AAS use presumably reflect its impact on a number of brain areas, a NIDA-funded study at Dartmouth Medical School has identified one neurobiological effect that has potentially important implications for the emotional stability and well-being of adolescent girls in particular.
Journal Highlights Global Nexus of Drug Abuse and HIV/AIDS
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One of the most urgent public health goals of addiction researchers is to curb drug abuse behaviors that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS, says a special supplement to Drug...
Controlling College Students' ADHD Symptoms May Protect Them Against Substance Abuse
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In a survey of 334 students at a college in the Southeast, those who reported having experienced symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during the past 6 months were...
Tracing NET
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Researchers have developed and successfully tested a new tool for studying the neurobiology of depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and stimulant abuse. Researchers will be able to use the tool...
Among Young Attendees at STD Clinics, Substance Abusers Report More Risky Sexual Behavior
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Patients aged 15 to 24 of a public sexually transmitted disease clinic who had a substance abuse disorder (SUD) were two to three times as likely as those without an...
NIDA's Newest Division Mines Clinical Applications From Basic Research
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NIDA's Division of Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral Research (DCNBR) identifies, validates, and explores the clinical implications of basic science discoveries. Much of the Division's work consists of replicating results obtained...
Neuropeptide Promotes Drug-Seeking and Craving in Rats
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Orexin, a neuropeptide that stimulates eating and regulates wakefulness, also fosters animals' drug seeking and craving responses to drugs, according to two NIDA-funded studies. The research teams, led by Drs...
Gene Experiment Confirms a Suspected Cocaine Action
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Cocaine produces the long-term brain changes that underlie addiction in part by activating certain genes. Dr. Eric Nestler and colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Harvard...
Endorphin Derivative Inhibits Reward From Morphine and Nicotine in Rats
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A naturally occurring brain chemical has shown early promise as a treatment for addiction. NIDA-funded researcher Dr. William Millington and colleagues at Albany College of Pharmacy demonstrated that glycyl-glutamine (Gly-Gln)...
NIDA Will Contribute to Obesity Research
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The United States has a serious weight problem. Two-thirds of our adults are overweight or obese. The prevalence of overweight among our children has nearly tripled since 1970. The consequences...
Adolescent Inhalant Use Is Stable Overall, but Rising Among Girls
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Almost 5 percent of girls between the ages of 12 and 17 used an inhalant to get high in 2005, an increase from 4.1 percent in 2002, according to a...
Meeting Reviews Roles of Drug Abuse and Risky Behavior in HIV
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More than 400 researchers and clinicians gathered in Bethesda, Maryland, May 8-9 to discuss the impact of drug abuse on the spread of HIV. NIDA sponsored the meeting in collaboration...
Serotonin System May Have Potential as a Target for Cocaine Medications
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NIDA-supported researchers have weakened rats' behavioral responses to environmental cocaine cues by manipulating the neurotransmitter serotonin. Moreover, such manipulation can make the drug seem less stimulant-like to the rats. The...
Vaccine May Reduce Fetal Exposure to Nicotine
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Vaccine-induced antibodies that facilitate smoking cessation by blocking nicotine penetration into the brain also markedly reduce the drug's passage across the ex vivo human placenta, a NIDA-funded study has demonstrated...
Standard Treatments Help Depressed Smokers Quit
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Smoking cessation interventions that are effective in the general population also help for depressed smokers, suggests a study of outpatients at four mental health clinics. Dr. Sharon Hall and colleagues...
Antipsychotic Drug Prevents Morphine Tolerance in Mice
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Dr. Zaijie Jim Wang and colleagues at the University of Illinois suppressed morphine tolerance and dependence in mice by blocking calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), which may contribute to chronic...
Scientists Pinpoint Brain's Sweet Tooth
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Drs. Susana Peciña and Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan have traced rats' liking for sweets to a 1-cubic millimeter site in the medial shell of the nucleus accumbens...
Latest Information on MDMA/Ecstasy, Steroids, and HIV/AIDS Is Available on NIDA's Web Site
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NIDA has updated its Research Reports on MDMA/ecstasy and steroids and published a new report on HIV/AIDS. The Institute's Research Report series provides educators, parents, clinicians, and others the latest...
Naltrexone-Nicotine Patch Combination Shows Promise
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Supplementing nicotine replacement therapy with naltrexone yielded improvements in outcomes in a double-blind 6-week trial. Among the 295 enrollees who completed the trial, quit rates were 72 percent with 100...
Incentives Reduce Stimulant Abuse During Methadone Maintenance
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Methadone maintenance patients who earned chances to win prizes by providing stimulant-negative urine samples were twice as likely as those who received usual care to attain abstinence from these drugs...
Abstinent Patients Continue to Show Benefits of Treatment
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Twelve years after cocaine addiction treatment, men who attained stable recovery - that is, were continuously abstinent for at least 5 years - reported less past-year criminal involvement, unemployment, and...
Interim Methadone Raises Odds of Enrolling in Comprehensive Treatment
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Providing methadone maintenance to heroin addicts while they are wait-listed for a treatment program can increase the likelihood they will enroll when spaces open up, say NIDA-funded researchers. The finding...
Genes and Smoking
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Most of the 44.5 million American adults who smoke cigarettes would prefer not to. Why do so many would-be quitters fail, even with the help of stop-smoking interventions like nicotine...
Depot Naltrexone Appears Safe and Effective for Heroin Addiction
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In a NIDA-supported pilot study, a new formulation of naltrexone that patients receive by injection once every 30 days appeared safe and helped heroin-addicted outpatients persevere in treatment. Investigators observed...
NIDA Investigator Receives 2006 Waletzky Memorial Award
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Dr. Yavin Shaham, an investigator in NIDA's Intramural Research Program (IRP), is the recipient of the 2006 Jacob P. Waletzky Memorial Award for Innovative Research in Drug Addiction and Alcoholism.He...
Meeting Reviews Progress On Prescription Opioid Misuse
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More than 400 researchers and clinicians gathered in Bethesda, Maryland March 5-6 to discuss a growing public health challenge: balancing appropriate pain treatment with efforts to minimize prescription opioid misuse...
Uneven Regional Brain Development Contributes to Adolescent Risk-Taking
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From drag racing to abusing drugs, teenagers sometimes act with scant apparent regard for consequences. Scientists have linked this impulsiveness and risk-taking to immaturity of the brain region called the...
Videos Help Treat Deaf People
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A new training DVD designed to improve deaf people's access to behavioral health care is now available to clients, and a second is on the way. NIDA-funded researchers Dr. Linda...
Medical Care During Addiction Treatment Reduces Hospital Use
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On-site delivery of primary care reduces emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient hospital stays over the next 12 months among adult patients in methadone maintenance or in long-term residential treatment...
Report Calls for Sweeping Changes in Health Care for Mental and Substance Abuse Problems
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Each year, more than 33 million Americans seek treatment for mental and substance use (M/SU) disorders, but deficiencies in health care quality and access prevent many of them from receiving...
Studies Focus on Acculturation and Hispanic Youth
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U.S.-Born Hispanic Women Have More Drug Problems Than Immigrants Among 19- to 21-year-old Hispanic women in South Florida, those born in the United States face a higher risk of drug...
Addiction and Co-Occurring Mental Disorders
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As many as 6 in 10 substance abusers also have at least one other mental disorder. Research increasingly supports the benefit of studying and treating co-occurring disorders together, with both...
Cocaine Craving Activates Brain Reward Structures; Cocaine "High" Dampens Them
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NIDA-funded researchers mapped the dynamic of drug-induced brain activity and emotional responses that occur during a cocaine abuser's typical binge-like pattern of self-administration. Dr. Robert Risinger and colleagues at the...
Cocaine Abusers' Pretreatment Cue Responses Predict Recovery Success
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A recent NIDA study strengthens prospects that brain imaging may one day help clinicians assign individual patients to treatment models that maximize their personal chances of a successful outcome. The...
Behavioral Response to Novelty Foreshadows Neurological Response to Cocaine
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NIDA-supported researchers Dr. Cheryl Kirstein and Ms. Kirstie Stansfield at the University of South Florida have found that higher scores on tests of impulsivity and some behavioral responses to novelty...
Journal Highlights Opportunities in Hispanic Drug Abuse Research
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"Scientific Opportunities in Hispanic Drug Abuse Research," a NIDA-funded supplemental issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence published in September 2006, compiles information on drug abuse among this fast-growing and diverse...
Nicotine Alters the Developing Rat Brain
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Most people who become chronic smokers start in adolescence, and the risk of addiction at this time is even greater among those whose mothers smoked while pregnant. NIDA-funded animal studies...
Brain Changes Accompany Cocaine Withdrawal
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Rats repeatedly exposed to cocaine and then withdrawn from it exhibit neural changes in the lateral amygdala, a part of the brain involved in responding to pleasurable and aversive stimuli...