Opium News

June 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Experimental Painkiller Could Outsmart Opioids -- Without the High

May 19, 2025 — A study shows a non-opioid pain reliever blocks pain at its source -- calming specific nerve signals that send pain messages to the brain. In mice, the compound SBI-810 eased pain from surgery, bone fractures, and nerve injury without causing ...

Physical and Psychological Symptoms of Ketamine Abuse Revealed in Research

May 4, 2025 — Ketamine addiction is linked to high levels of physical health problems and psychological consequences, with nearly half of those affected not seeking support or treatment, new research has ...

Mindfulness Therapy Reduces Opioid Craving and Addiction, Study Finds

May 2, 2025 — Researchers found that Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) can help rewire the brain's response to natural healthy pleasure, leading to reduced opioid cravings. The findings suggest that MORE could be a promising tool in the fight ...

Machine Learning Brings New Insights to Cell's Role in Addiction, Relapse

May 1, 2025 — Researchers have applied object recognition technology to track changes in brain cell structure and provide new insights into how the brain responds to heroin use, withdrawal and ...

Dangerous Synthetic Opioids and Animal Sedatives Found in Wastewater

May 1, 2025 — Scientists have developed a highly sensitive method to detect illegal opioids and a veterinary sedative in Australia's wastewater system, providing a vital early warning tool to public health ...

Favorite Music Sets the Brain's Opioids in Motion

Apr. 16, 2025 — A new imaging study showed that listening to favorite music affects the function of the brain's opioid ...

'Eolving' Opioid Epidemic Across U.S.

Apr. 14, 2025 — The heart of the opioid epidemic that killed 665,341 people in the United States between 2005 and 2020 shifted geographically from the Northwest to the East, according to a new geographical ...

Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Improve Chronic Low Back Pain

Apr. 7, 2025 — Eight weeks of mindfulness or cognitive behavioral therapy were associated with improved pain, physical function and quality of life and reduced daily opioid dose in adults with chronic low back pain that required treated with daily opioids, ...

Co-Prescribed Stimulants, Opioids Linked to Higher Opioid Doses

Feb. 21, 2025 — The combination of prescribed central nervous system stimulants, such as drugs that relieve ADHD symptoms, with prescribed opioid medications is associated with a pattern of escalating opioid intake, a new study has ...

Continuing Vs. Discontinuing Opioid Medications Prescriptions for Adults With Chronic Pain

Feb. 20, 2025 — With the goal of informing clinician practice, a new study explores the harms and benefits of continuing and of discontinuing the long-term prescription of opioid medicines to adults with chronic ...

Emergency Clinicians Increase Prescriptions of Buprenorphine, Effectively Help Patients Get Started on the Path to Recovery

Feb. 19, 2025 — In the face of the alarming number of opioid-related deaths in the U.S., there have been national efforts to increase emergency clinician prescribing of buprenorphine, a medication used to treat ...

Dessert Stomach Emerges in the Brain

Feb. 13, 2025 — Who hasn't been there? The big meal is over, you're full, but the craving for sweets remains. Researchers have now discovered that what we call the 'dessert stomach' is rooted in the brain. The same nerve cells that make us feel full after a meal ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:24pm EDT

Researchers Identify Safer Pathway for Pain Relief

Apr. 9, 2025 — Scientists have helped identify a novel drug compound that selectively activates pain-altering receptors in the body, offering a potentially safer alternative to conventional pain ...

Study Identifies Shisa7 Gene as Key Driver in Heroin Addiction

Mar. 27, 2025 — Researchers have found a unique molecular signature and genes in the orbitofrontal cortex associated with heroin-seeking behavior. A preclinical rodent model implicated a gene called Shisa7 as the ...

Changes in Opioid Use Outcomes After Passage of Medical Marijuana Laws

Jan. 14, 2025 — A new study found no changes in opioid outcomes among the general population with the states' passage of medical and recreational marijuana laws. However, the findings also show decreases in opioid ...

Non-Opioid Pain Relievers Beat Opioids After Dental Surgery

Jan. 6, 2025 — Researchers find an over-the-counter combo is more effective for wisdom tooth extraction ...

Breakthrough in Drug-Free Pain Relief: Solvent-Mediated Analgesia for Safer, Non-Addictive Pain Management

Dec. 16, 2024 — Researchers have made a discovery regarding the TRPV1 (transient receptor potential vanilloid 1) ion channel and its role in pain perception. The ...

Researchers 'See' Vulnerability to Gaming Addiction in the Adolescent Brain

Dec. 9, 2024 — Researchers found that adolescents with more symptoms of gaming addiction showed lower brain activity in the region involved in decision-making and reward processing; this blunted response to reward ...

Reducing Risk of Opioid Addiction While Alleviating Pain

Dec. 9, 2024 — Increasing the levels of chemicals naturally produced in the body called endocannabinoids may thwart the highly addictive nature of opioids such as morphine and oxycodone while maintaining the drugs' ...

Dopamine and Serotonin Work in Opposition to Shape Learning

Nov. 26, 2024 — Research shows that reward-based learning requires the two neuromodulators to balance one another's influence -- like the accelerator and brakes on a ...

How Can Low-Dose Ketamine, a 'Lifesaving' Drug for Major Depression, Alleviate Symptoms Within Hours?

Nov. 21, 2024 — Neuroscientists have identified the binding site of low-dose ketamine, providing critical insight into how the medication, often described as a ...

Exposure to Marijuana in the Womb May Increase Risk of Addiction to Opioids Later in Life, Study Finds

Nov. 15, 2024 — Evidence has been growing to suggest that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, poses risks to the developing ...

Methadone Much More Effective Than Buprenorphine/naloxone for Treatment Retention, With No Difference in Mortality Risk, Study Finds

Oct. 21, 2024 — People with opioid use disorder in British Columbia who received methadone had a 37- to 40-percent lower rate of treatment discontinuation compared with those who received buprenorphine/naloxone. The ...

Men and Women Process Pain Differently, Study Finds

Oct. 16, 2024 — According to new research, men and women rely on different biological systems for pain relief, which could help explain why our most powerful pain medications are often less effective in ...

Tiny Antibodies to Fight the Dangerous Effects of Opioids

Oct. 9, 2024 — Opioid drugs are highly effective at relieving pain but come with severe drawbacks. Their side effects range from dizziness to potentially fatal respiratory depression. Their illegal use contributes ...

Higher Doses of Buprenorphine May Improve Treatment Outcomes for People With Opioid Use Disorder

Sep. 25, 2024 — Adults with opioid use disorder who receive a higher daily dose of the opioid addiction treatment medication buprenorphine may have a lower risk of subsequent emergency department visits or use of ...

Placebo Pain Relief and Positive Treatment Expectations Are Not Caused by Dopamine, Researchers Find

Sep. 24, 2024 — New findings argue against a direct causal role for dopamine during the experience of a treatment effect in the establishment of positive treatment expectations and placebo analgesia in healthy ...

Nonfatal Opioid Overdoses in Youth Spiked During Pandemic

Sep. 19, 2024 — Drug overdose mortality has risen faster among adolescents than the general population in recent years, largely due to fentanyl, a potent opioid pain medication. A new study sheds light on trends in ...

Ultra-Low-Dose Ketamine Can Curb Opioid Withdrawal

Sep. 17, 2024 — A pilot study showed that a small amount of ketamine can reduce or eliminate the withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting ...

Mechanisms of How Morphine Relieves Pain Mapped out

Aug. 29, 2024 — Researchers describe the neural processes behind how morphine relieves pain. This is valuable knowledge because the drug has such serious side ...

The Brain's Balancing System

Aug. 27, 2024 — A finding by neuroscientists could open doors to new treatments for a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders attributed to dysfunctions in specific dopamine ...

Methamphetamine-Involved Psychiatric Hospitalizations Have Increased, Study Says

Aug. 16, 2024 — A new study that details trends among psychiatric hospitalizations between 2015-2019 finds that while most hospitalizations did not involve any substances, methamphetamine-related hospitalizations ...

An Implantable Sensor Could Reverse Opioid Overdoses

Aug. 14, 2024 — A new implantable sensor could reverse opioid overdoses. The device rapidly releases naloxone when an overdose is ...

Study Finds Gaps in Mental Health Care for People With Chronic Pain

July 29, 2024 — A new study found that adults with chronic pain are more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression than people without chronic pain, yet they access mental health care at lower rates ...

Last Decade Saw Big Decrease in Teens Who Used Commonly Prescribed and Misused Prescription Drugs

July 25, 2024 — Since 2009, U.S. high school seniors have reported steep declines in medical use, misuse and availability of the three most commonly prescribed and misused controlled substances for teens, a new ...

Neuroscientists Discover Brain Circuitry of Placebo Effect for Pain Relief

July 24, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a novel pain control pathway that links the cingulate cortex in the front of the brain, through the pons region of the brainstem, to cerebellum in the back of the ...

New Analgesic Could Replace Opioids Over the Long Term

July 17, 2024 — Opioids have long been known as natural substances with substantial pharmacological effect. They have been used as effective painkillers. Researchers have now identified a natural active substance ...

Designing Safer Opioids

July 17, 2024 — Opioid medications offer people relief from debilitating pain, but these drugs come with dangers: the risk for addiction, miserable withdrawal symptoms and the potential for fatal overdose. ...

Research Shows Protein Isoform Inhibitors May Hold the Key to Making Opioids Safer

July 16, 2024 — Researchers have identified a new way to make opioids safer, increasing the pain-relieving properties of opioids while decreasing unwanted side effects through the spinal inhibition of a Heat shock ...

Visualizing Addiction: How New Research Could Change the Way We Fight the Opioid Epidemic

July 15, 2024 — New research could transform how we understand the way opioids affect the brain. Despite significant discussion surrounding the ongoing opioid crisis, current understanding of how opioids function in ...

Many Youths Continue to Take Opioids Months After Surgical Procedures

July 11, 2024 — A multi-institutional study found that 1 in 6 youths fill an opioid prescription prior to surgery, and 3% of patients were still filling opioid prescriptions three to six months after surgery, ...

Researchers Identify Brain Region Involved in Oxycodone Relapse

July 9, 2024 — Even years after they have recovered, a person who once struggled with alcohol or opioid addiction can relapse--and that relapse is more likely to occur during particularly stressful times. Now, ...