Addiction

Vanderbilt’s Carrie K. Jones and the University of Glasgow’s Andrew Tobin have received a prestigious £5 million ($6.2 million) Wellcome Trust Discovery Award to study how blocking the M5 muscarinic receptor in the brain could reduce opioid addiction while preserving pain relief. This groundbreaking international collaboration, supported by the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, aims to advance new treatments in the critical global health crisis of opioid use disorder. Read More

An $8.9 million grant from the NIH will establish the Vanderbilt AUD Research and Education Center, enhancing Vanderbilt University’s national leadership in neuroscience and addiction research. This initiative aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, advance understanding and treatment of alcohol use disorder, and engage the public through education and outreach efforts. Read More

Join the next Lab-to-Table conversation, “Beyond Addiction: Therapeutic Developments and Societal Impact” on Jan. 24 at 11:30 a.m. CT. Read More

Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country's epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction. Read More

The Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research, led by Erin Calipari, advances research to understand how addiction and substance use disorder develops in the brain. VCAR’s goals are to develop new pharmaceutical strategies and to destigmatize addiction as a personal failing. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have identified and characterized inhibitors of an enzyme that synthesizes lipid signaling molecules with roles in energy balance, inflammation and addiction. Read More

Danny Winder and colleagues are teasing apart the actions of neurotransmitter receptors in a brain region linked to anxiety and addiction, with a goal of finding treatments for substance use disorders. Read More

New study from neuroscientists at Vanderbilt provides initial answers to long-standing scientific questions on what causes the transition from moderate to compulsive alcohol consumption – and what makes some drinkers particularly vulnerable to developing alcohol use disorders. Read More

But long before female-specific medications are available, treatment centers could use the information in this study to educate women about their stronger mental connections to places and objects. Read More

There’s promise in specific immune system peptides—amino acid compounds that signal cells how to function. In this case, they may be affecting brain activity and, by extension, drug cravings. Read More