Research Highlights

Science Highlight

Microglia Revealed

 |  Neuroscientists at the NIDA Intramural Research Program, with colleagues from the Johns Hopkins University, conducted the most extensive analysis to date of microglia in the midbrain of healthy mice. They...
Nora's Blog

Addressing America’s Fentanyl Crisis

 |  Every day, 91* Americans fatally overdose on an opioid drug. It may be a prescription analgesic or heroin but increasingly it is likely to be heroin’s much more potent synthetic...
NIDA Notes

Endocannabinoid Regulates Cocaine Reward

 |  Investigators have shown that 2-AG, an endocannabinoid (i.e., a cannabinoid manufactured within the body, as opposed to plant-derived), augments the cocaine-induced dopamine surge in the brain’s reward system. The discovery...
NIDA Notes

Impacts of Drugs on Neurotransmission

 |  Drugs can alter the way people think, feel, and behave by disrupting neurotransmission, the process of communication between neurons (nerve cells) in the brain. Many scientific studies conducted over decades...
NIDA Notes

Why Are Our Brains So Big and Powerful?

 |  Why is the human brain so much bigger and more powerful than that of other animals? Researchers have investigated the hypothesis that changes not only in our genes themselves, but...
NIDA Notes

Promising Advances in the Search for Safer Opioids

 |  Two novel compounds powerfully suppressed animals’ pain responses, while producing little or none of the respiratory depression and liability for misuse and abuse associated with morphine and other typical opioids...