Impactful academic research plays a stellar role in society, pressing to ask the question of how one measures the impact created by different areas of academic research. Measuring the societal, cultural, economic and scientific impact of research is currently the priority of the National Science Foundation, European Commission and several research funding agencies. The recently concluded United...

Endogenous opioids seem to play a critical role in the regulation of mood states. For example, there is accumulating evidence that stimulation of kappa-opioid receptors, upon which the endogenous opioid dynorphin acts, can produce depressive-like behaviors in laboratory animals. Here we examined whether systemic administration of salvinorin A (SalvA), a potent and highly selective kappa-opioid ...

The increasing digitization and interconnection of legacy Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) open new vulnerability surfaces, exposing such systems to malicious attackers. Furthermore, since ICSs are often employed in critical infrastructures (e.g., nuclear plants) manufacturing companies chemical industries), attacks can lead devastating physical damages. In dealing with this security requireme...

O PIOIDS are widely used for the management of intense acute pain, the management of cancer-related pain, or in an end-of-life palliative context. However, their regular use for chronic noncancer pain remains a subject of debate. Controlled preclinical studies may help to address the complex interaction between opioid pain relief and abuse potential, but they still remain scarce in the literatu...

Inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) are recommended for patients with asthma who use a short-acting beta(2)-adrenergic agonist more than twice weekly--a key indicator of disease persistency. Much knowledge about the long-term benefits of ICSs in persistent asthma stems from studies of the ICS budesonide, which have shaped current asthma guidelines. Results of the 3-year double-blind phase of the inh...

Agonists at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) constitute one drug class being evaluated as candidate analgesics. Previous preclinical studies have implicated α4β2 and α7 nAChRs as potential mediators of the antinociceptive effects of (–)-nicotine hydrogen tartrate (nicotine) and other nAChR agonists; however, these studies have relied exclusively on measures of pain-stimulated behavior...