Accumulating evidence suggests that glutamate, as one of the most important excitatory neurotransmitters in the brain, plays a key role in drug addiction including opioid addiction. There is substantial evidence for glutamatergic projections into mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic neurons, which are associated with opioid psychological dependence and are also the key regions of enhancement effect. ...

introduction: x chromosome inactivation (xci) is a process during which one of the two x chromosomes in female human is silenced leading to equal gene expression with males who have only one x chromosome. here we have investigated xci ratio in females with opioid addiction to see whether xci skewness in women could be a risk factor for opioid addiction. methods: 30 adult females meeting dsm iv ...

BACKGROUND Determinants of the duration of opioid use after surgery have not been reported. We hypothesized that both preoperative psychological distress and substance abuse would predict more prolonged opioid use after surgery. METHODS Between January 2007 and April 2009, a prospective, longitudinal inception cohort study enrolled 109 of 134 consecutively approached patients undergoing maste...

BACKGROUND The use of opioid analgesics in the treatment of chronic pain conditions has long been controversial. They have been reported to be relatively safe when prescribed with caution, but a brief and valid instrument to estimate a person's risk of addiction is still missing. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate a self-rating questionnaire allowing an estimation of a person'...

objective: in this study, the current literatures on the use of herbs and herbal preparations of traditional chinese and indian medicine for the treatment of opioid addiction were reviewed. methods: search was done in databases such as pub med, science direct, scopus, springer link, and google scholar. results: among 18 retrieved studies, 3 studies were about asafetida extract, an approved prep...

Patients with opioid addiction who receive prescription opioids for treatment of nonmalignant chronic pain present a therapeutic challenge. Fifty-four participants with chronic pain and opioid addiction were randomized to receive methadone or buprenorphine/naloxone. At the 6-month follow-up examination, 26 (48.1%) participants who remained in the study noted a 12.75% reduction in pain (P = 0.04...

BACKGROUND Opioids are good painkillers, but many patients treated with opioids as painkillers developed a secondary addiction. These patients need to stop misusing opioids, but the mild-to-severe clinical symptoms associated with opioid withdrawal risk increasing their existing pain. In such cases, ketamine, which is used by anaesthetists and pain physicians to reduce opioid medication, may be...

The Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 (DATA 2000) was established to create a new paradigm for medication-assisted treatment of opiate addiction in the United States. Before enactment of DATA 2000, the use of opioid medications to treat opioid addiction was permissible only in federally approved treatment programs, ie, methadone clinics. The only medications permitted were Schedule II drugs ...

Buprenorphine-naloxone (bup/nal in 4:1 ratio; Suboxone®, Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Incorporation, Richmond, VA) is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for outpatient office-based addiction treatment. In the past few years, bup/nal has been increasingly prescribed off-label for chronic pain management. The current data suggests that bup/nal may provide pain relief in chronic pai...

The way in which opioid addiction is managed in France is unique, as it is based on the prescription of buprenorphine by general practitioners and is dispensed by retail pharmacies. This policy has had a direct, positive impact on the number of deaths caused by heroin overdose, which was reduced by four-fifths between 1994 and 2002. In addition, certain associated comorbidities, such as infecti...