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To uncover the link to emotional abuse, the study, published in the current issue of  Addictive Behaviors , analysed and cross referenced the results of a series of psychological tests administered to a sample of 84 individuals with a history of problem opioid use who had also suffered childhood trauma. Earlier research has found that a high percentage of adults who abuse substances were maltreated in a variety of ways as children. But few previous studies have investigated the causes of opioid addiction specifically, and no earlier ones narrowed the link among opioid users to emotional abuse . Emotional abuse was much more strongly correlated with survey participants' problem opioid use than childhood sexual and physical abuse or other kinds of maltreatment such as neglect. The study found that children who had been emotionally abused were more likely to engage in rash, risky behavior in adolescence and to suffer posttraumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ) as adults. Opioid us...

"The more that we learn about the brain, the more that we learn that brain signaling mechanisms that play a particular defined function, such as a role in wakefulness or appetite, often play important roles in other functions, such as addiction," said professor John Krystal, Editor of  Biological Psychiatry . HCRT signaling has been implicated in stress and high-arousal conditions, linking it to cocaine's strong arousal-inducing effects and stress-induced relapse of drug seeking. To better understand how the HCRT system contributes cocaine addiction, Schmeichel, along with colleagues at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, provided rats with short (1 hour) or long (6 hours) access to cocaine, which the rats could self-administer through an IV by pressing a lever. Long access to the drug induces compulsive-like cocaine seeking behavior in the rats, in contrast to more stable use by rats provided short access. Blocking hypocretin signaling throughout ...