This review examines the development of cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonists as a new class of therapeutic agents for drug addiction. Abused drugs [alcohol, opiates, -tetrahydrocannabinol ( -THC), and psychostimulants, including nicotine] elicit a variety of chronically relapsing disorders by interacting with endogenous neural pathways in the brain. In particular, they share the common property...

The abuse of drugs, including opioids and stimulants, is a major public health problem worldwide, including in East Asia. Nonetheless, there are no pharmacological treatments for many psychiatric or neurological symptoms associated with that abuse. Abused drugs exert several detrimental effects on structural plasticity in brain regions associated with reward circuits. Understanding the molecula...

 To understand the metabolic problems of patients who have abused alcohol;  To know the causes of malnutrition in patients who have abused alcohol;  To identify specific nutritional deficiencies in patients who have abused alcohol;  To know the specific risk of thiamine deficiency in patients who have abused alcohol;  To learn the best approaches to nutritional support in patients who have...

Drugs and substances abuse in patients with refractor epilepsy were investigated in this study which includes 924 patients with intractable epilepsy were studied for serum levels of antiepileptic drugs and for drugs and substances abuse. Positive results for abuse were detected in 246 patients (26.62%), 56.5% of them were in the age group 20 – 30 years. Males outnumbered females with a sex rati...

Differing classes of abused drugs utilize different mechanisms of molecular pharmacological action yet the overuse of these same drugs frequently leads to the same outcome: addiction. Similarly, episodes of stress can lead to drug-seeking behaviors and relapse in recovering addicts. To overcome the labor-intensive headache of having to design a specific addiction-breaking intervention tailored ...

The use of illicit drugs among American youth is approaching epidemic proportions. The 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) prepared by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that 8.9% of adolescents and adults age 12 years or older use illicit drugs. The most disturbing trend, however, is the number of children in foster care who abuse alcohol or d...

The striatum plays a key role in mediating the acute and chronic effects of addictive drugs, with drugs of abuse causing long-lasting molecular and cellular alterations in both dorsal striatum and nucleus accumbens (ventral striatum). Despite the wealth of research on the biological actions of abused drugs in striatum, until recently, the distinct roles of the striatum's two major subtypes of m...

This study identifies case characteristics of abused women in a child protection services caseload. The sample was drawn from a large child protection agency in southwestern Ontario consisting of 853 children chosen at random from among all children who had a new referral over a 12-month period. Files of the children were reviewed to derive study data. Results indicate that abused women are sig...

Alcohol is one of the most commonly abused drugs, and it impairs diverse functions central nervous system, such as cognition memorization. The dentate gyrus (DG) region hippocampus crucial for spatial memory coding. However, whether alcohol exposure can affect DG neuron activity impair has not been identified. Here, we discovered a key damage. (1) We found repeated overactivated neurons, while ...