Stress can trigger drug-seeking behavior, increase self-administration rates, and enhance drug reward. A number of stress-related neuropeptides have been shown to mediate these behavioral processes. The most studied peptide in this category is corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which has been shown to mediate stress-induced reinstatement of drug seeking, escalated self-administration, and d...

PURPOSE Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) including medication allergies are not well-described among large national cohorts. This study described the most common documented medication allergies and their reactions among a national cohort of Veterans Affairs (VA) inpatients. METHODS We evaluated inpatient admissions in any VA Medical Center from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2014. Each admission ...

OBJECTIVE There is growing concern about the effect of substance use on HIV treatment outcomes. The study objectives included: (i) evaluating whether the use of validated questionnaires (AUDIT and DUDIT) provide useful and consistent information of alcohol and drug consumption when compared with the use of biomarkers of alcohol in (urine and hair) and drugs in (urine) and (ii) assessing the fea...

BACKGROUND Illicit drug use is an important public health problem. Identifying conditions that coexist with illicit drug use is necessary for planning health services. This study described the prevalence and factors associated with social and health problems among clients seeking treatment for illicit drug use. METHODS We carried out cross-sectional analyses of baseline data of 2526 clients w...

Psychophysical methods, data and theory have interesting clinical applications in the field of medicine. Physicians have special needs for new methods that reveal a patient’s self-report of current health status. Subjects often are asked to express judgments about variables such as pain intensity, respiratory discomfort during exercise, and quality of life. Examples described in this paper are ...

Economic theories of rational addiction aim to describe consumer behavior in the presence of habit-forming goods. We provide a biological foundation for this body of work by formally specifying conditions under which it is optimal to form a habit. We demonstrate the empirical validity of our thesis with an in-depth review and synthesis of the biomedical literature concerning the action of opiat...

OBJECTIVE This was a prospective longitudinal multisite study of the effects of prenatal cocaine and/or opiate exposure on neurodevelopmental outcome in term and preterm infants at 1 month of age. METHODS The sample included 658 exposed and 730 comparison infants matched on race, gender, and gestational age (11.7% born <33 weeks' gestational age). Mothers were recruited at 4 urban university-...