Research in Context March 24, 2026 Research leads to more effective medications and psychotherapies Alcohol and drug addiction can cause many harms. This Research in Context feature looks at research into the causes of addiction and new ways to treat it. Addiction affects millions of people nationwide. marjan4782 / Adobe Stock Addiction is a serious public … Read more
In a clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a research team found that administering weekly injectable extended-release buprenorphine for treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) during pregnancy led to higher rates of abstinence from illicit opioids than buprenorphine given daily under the tongue (sublingual), one of the standard methods of treatment. … Read more
New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has found that excessive smartphone use is closely associated with disordered eating, including uncontrolled eating and emotional overeating, as well greater symptoms of food addiction in young people with no diagnosis of an eating disorder. The research, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, established a significant and consistent association between Problematic Smartphone Use … Read more
A major study of US veterans suggests that GLP-1 diabetes medications may influence addiction-related outcomes, revealing a surprising connection between metabolic treatments and substance use risk. Study: Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists and risk of substance use disorders among US veterans with type 2 diabetes: cohort study. Image Credit: Kotcha K / Shutterstock A recent study … Read more
When a cocaine addict relapses, it isn’t a matter of personal failure – it’s the biological result of their brain’s rewiring, new research finds. Michigan State University scientists found that cocaine changes how the hippocampus functions, contributing to the ongoing compulsion to seek out the drug. Their National Institutes of Health-supported research, published in Science … Read more
A sweeping new peer-reviewed study published in Genomic Psychiatry has introduced a concept that could reshape how psychiatrists and geneticists think about mental illness: genetic specificity. Led by Dr. Kenneth S. Kendler at Virginia Commonwealth University, the research team analyzed data from over two million individuals born in Sweden between 1950 and 1995, asking a … Read more
Chronic pain is one of the most common health conditions worldwide. Back pain is the most frequently reported type, followed closely by head and face pain linked to the jaw joint, in the form of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder. While not life-threatening like cancer or infectious disease, chronic pain can dramatically diminish quality of life … Read more
A new study published in the journal Addiction shows that cannabis use among Swedish adolescents appears to follow the same population-level pattern previously observed for alcohol. The findings suggest that changes in average cannabis use among young people are reflected across the entire group-from those who use infrequently to those who use frequently. The study … Read more
Just 10 sessions of yoga can cut the length of the initial, most severe period of opioid withdrawal nearly in half, dramatically increasing the odds of successful recovery, new research shows. The first days of withdrawal pose highest risk of dropout and relapse as they are marked by oftensevere sleeplessness, anxiety, pain, and other symptoms, … Read more
After a grueling year of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation to treat breast cancer, Sadia Zapp was anxious — not the manageable hum that had long been part of her life, but something deeper, more distracting. “Every little ache, like my knee hurts,” she said, made her worry that “this is the end of the road … Read more