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A new candidate for ADHD medication: Amantadine and the rise of non-stimulants
It is well known that ADHD diagnoses and substance abuse problems are closely associated. It is estimated that substance abuse problems including dependence are up to twice as common among individuals with ADHD, which is not surprising given the impulsivity factor involved in ADHD. The problem is that until recently, most medications for ADHD have belonged…
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Obesity, drug addiction, and dopamine
Eating junk-food can be addictive, and apparently, it causes brain changes that look eerily similar to drug addiction. That’s the message not only from the rapidly fattening waistlines of Americans everywhere, but also from the Johnson and Kenny labs at the Scripps Institute. Food and drug addiction The idea that obesity is caused by a…
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Talking to NIDA about addiction research- Nicotine, cocaine, treatment matching and more
It’s not everyday that I get an invite to speak with NIDA‘s director, Dr. Nora Volkow, and so, even though it required my creative use of some VOIP technology from a living room in Tel-Aviv, I logged onto a conference call led by the leading addiction researcher. When my colleagues, Dirk Hanson and Elizabeth Hartney,…
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More drug addiction research from CPDD: Teenage smoking, childhood trauma, and marijuana withdrawal
Today, I’ll give a short summary of a few interesting talks I saw at the conference: Teenage smoking – Children of mothers who used drugs during pregnancy had abnormal stress hormone levels. When assessed over time, their abnormal stress response was associated with an earlier onset (age of first use) of cigarettes smoking and an…