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Recent Research Sheds New Light on Why Nicotine is So Addictive

September 28, 2018
Nicotine does not produce the kind of euphoria or impairment that many other drugs like opioids and marijuana do. People do not get high from smoking cigarettes or vaping. Yet nicotine’s powerful ability to reinforce its relatively mild rewards results in 480,000 deaths annually. Read More.

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Recent Posts

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Could Naltrexone Be Used to Treat Pregnant Women with Opioid Addiction?

February 2018
A recent study published in Lancet found that extended-release naltrexone was equally effective at reducing illicit opioid use as the partial agonist buprenorphine if patients could be successfully initiated on naltrexone. Read More.

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Image of pipettes and gloved hands

NIDA’s Past-Year Achievements Point the Way Toward Future Advances

January 2018
2017 brought exciting new basic science findings, including some striking new insights into the structure and functioning of receptors that play important roles in substance use, addiction, and pain. Read More.

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Monitoring the future logo

Monitoring the Future Results Show Reduced Opioid Misuse but Popularity of Vaping Among Youth

December 2017
Today the results of the 2017 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey were released by NIDA-funded researchers at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and overall the news is encouraging. Read More.

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World AIDS Day logo

NIDA’S Avant-Garde Award Competition Continues to Foster Transformative HIV/AIDS Research

December 2017
NIH-funded science continues to make great strides in the fight against HIV. To foster such research, 10 years ago NIDA created its Avant-Garde Award competition to fund bold projects that could have a high impact in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS in drug users. Read More.

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Illustration of crowdsourcing

Mobilizing Citizen Science to Address the Overdose Epidemic

November 2017
Social media and crowdsourcing apps could be particularly useful for gathering and sharing information in real time about overdoses and using that information to prevent overdose deaths, thereby translating “citizen science” into “citizen prevention.” Read More.

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Addressing the Opioid Crisis Means Confronting Socioeconomic Disparities

October 2017
When we speak of addiction as a chronic disorder of the brain, it thus includes an understanding that some individuals are more susceptible to drug use and addiction than others... Read More.

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Photo of researcher working with a pipette under a hood

New Medication Formulations Could Quickly Make a Difference for Treating Opioid Addiction

August 2017
As Francis Collins and I wrote in May, NIH and NIDA are committed to an “all scientific hands on deck” effort to end the opioid crisis in America by halving the time it takes to develop new medications to treat pain and addiction and reverse overdoses. Read More.

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male student sleeping in class

The Concerning Link Between Inadequate Sleep and Adolescent Substance Use

July 2017
Children and adolescents require more sleep than adults. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) defines a sufficient night’s sleep for an adolescent as 8.5-9.5 hours per night. But according to data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey, just over a quarter of middle and high-school students (27.5 %) got 8 hours or more of sleep on the average night in 2015, and most got much less. Researchers have found striking links between insufficient sleep and a range of adverse outcomes in adolescents, including obesity, poor school performance, and behavioral problems including substance use. Read More.

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Journal special report screenshot

“All Scientific Hands on Deck” to End the Opioid Crisis

May 2017
In 2015, two million people had a prescription opioid use disorder and 591,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder; prescription drug misuse alone cost the nation $78.5 billion in healthcare, law enforcement, and lost productivity. But while the scope of the crisis is staggering, it is not hopeless. By Nora Volkow (Director, NIDA) and Francis Collins (Director, NIH) Read More.

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Image of woman breaking a cigarette

Smoking Cessation May Improve Behavioral Health Conditions (CRAN Blog)

May 2017
Cigarette smoking remains the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the United States, responsible for over 480,000 deaths a year. Even though smoking has been decreasing overall, the smoking rate for persons with behavioral health conditions (mental and/or substance use disorders) is about twice that of the rest of the population. Read More.

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Dr. Nora Volkow: Remarks and Video Highlights

APA 2015 meeting

About This Blog

Dr. Nora Volkow

Here I highlight important work being done at NIDA and other news related to the science of drug abuse and addiction.
—Dr. Nora Volkow, Director

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