Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @04:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-catch-a-break dept.

UCI researchers identify a connection between early life adversity and opioid addiction:

[Note: UCI is the University of California, Irvine. --Ed.]

Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the study titled, "On the early life origins of vulnerability to opioid addiction," examines how early adversities interact with factors such as increased access to opioids to directly influence brain development and function, causing a higher potential for opioid addiction.

"We already know that genetics plays a major role in addiction vulnerability. But, this factor alone cannot account for the recent exponential rise in opioid abuse," said Tallie Z. Baram, MD, PhD, the Danette Shepard Chair in Neurological Sciences at the UCI School of Medicine and one of the senior researchers for the study. "Our team was determined to find out if environmental factors, like early life adversity, were contributing."

Until now, it was unclear whether alterations of the maturation and function of pleasure/reward circuits in the brain, resulting from ELA, actually caused individuals to be more vulnerable to opioid use disorder.

[...] For this study, researchers simulated ELA in rats by limiting bedding and nesting materials during a short, postnatal period of time. In female rats, this led to striking opioid addiction-like characteristics including an increased relapse-like behavior. Remarkably, as observed in addicted humans, the rats were willing to work very hard (pay a very high price) to obtain the drug.

"Our study provided novel insights into potential origins and nature of a reward circuit malfunction in the brain," said Baram. "Ultimately, we found that conditions during sensitive developmental periods can lead to vulnerability to the addictive effects of opioid drugs, especially in females, which is consistent with the prevalence of ELA in heroin addicted women."

Journal Reference:
Sophia C. Levis, Brandon S. Bentzley, Jenny Molet, Jessica L. Bolton, Christina R. Perrone, Tallie Z. Baram, Stephen V. Mahler. On the early life origins of vulnerability to opioid addiction. Molecular Psychiatry, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41380-019-0628-5


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:08AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:08AM (#950455) Journal

    Hell, I guess the USSR's Gosbank [...] were great forces of capitalism too.

    Welcome to the concept of state capitalism [soylentnews.org].