Cost of start-up activities to implement a community-level opioid overdose reduction intervention in the HEALing Communities Study.

Background: Communities That HEAL (CTH) is a novel, data-driven community-engaged intervention designed to reduce opioid overdose deaths by increasing community engagement, adoption of an integrated set of evidence-based practices, and delivering a communications campaign across healthcare, behavioral-health, criminal-legal, and other community-based settings. The implementation of such a complex initiative requires up-front investments of time and other expenditures (i.e.

IUPHAR Review: New strategies for medications to treat substance use disorders.

Substance use disorders (SUDs) and drug overdose are a public health emergency and safe and effective treatments are urgently needed. Developing new medications to treat them is expensive, time-consuming, and the probability of a compound progressing to clinical trials and obtaining FDA-approval is low. The small number of FDA-approved medications for SUDs reflects the low interest of pharmaceutical companies to invest in this area due to market forces, characteristics of the population (e.

What Is It like to Be a Brain Organoid? Phenomenal Consciousness in a Biological Neural Network.

It has been shown that three-dimensional self-assembled multicellular structures derived from human pluripotent stem cells show electrical activity similar to EEG. More recently, neurons were successfully embedded in digital game worlds. The biologically inspired neural network (BNN), expressing human cortical cells, was able to show internal modification and learn the task at hand (predicting the trajectory of a digital ball while moving a digital paddle).

Economic benefits of substance use disorder treatment: A systematic literature review of economic evaluation studies from 2003 to 2021.

Introduction: The economic burden of substance use disorder (SUD) is significant, comprising costs of health care and social services, criminal justice resources, loss of productivity, and premature mortality. This study assembles and synthesizes two decades of evidence describing the benefits of SUD treatment across five main outcome domains; 1) health care utilization; 2) self-reported criminal activity by offense type; 3) criminal justice involvement collected from administrative records or self-reported; 4) productivity assessed through working hours or wages earned; and 5) social services (e.g.

Evaluation of the New England Office Based Addiction Treatment ECHO: A Tool for Strengthening the Addiction Workforce.

Introduction: Reducing substance-related morbidity requires an educated and well-supported workforce. The New England Office Based Addiction Treatment Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (NE OBAT ECHO) began in 2019 to support community-based addiction care teams through virtual mentoring and case-based learning. We sought to characterize the program's impact on the knowledge and attitudes of NE OBAT ECHO participants.

Budget impact tool for the incorporation of medications for opioid use disorder into jail/prison facilities.

Background: Given the personal and public consequences of untreated/undertreated OUD among persons involved in the justice system, an increasing number of jails and prisons are incorporating medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) into their system. Estimating the costs of implementing and sustaining a particular MOUD program is vital to detention facilities, which typically face modest, fixed health care budgets. We developed a customizable budget impact tool to estimate the implementation and sustainment costs of numerous MOUD delivery models for detention facilities.

Baseline brain function in the preadolescents of the ABCD Study.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is a 10-year longitudinal study of children recruited at ages 9 and 10. A battery of neuroimaging tasks are administered biennially to track neurodevelopment and identify individual differences in brain function. This study reports activation patterns from functional MRI (fMRI) tasks completed at baseline, which were designed to measure cognitive impulse control with a stop signal task (SST; N = 5,547), reward anticipation and receipt with a monetary incentive delay (MID) task (N = 6,657) and working memory and emotion reactivity with an emotional N-back (EN-back) task (N = 6,009).

Health status in survivors older than 70 years after hospitalization with COVID-19: observational follow-up study at 3 months.

Purpose: To analyze factors associated with mortality at 3 months and readmissions, functional and cognitive decline, anorexia and affective disorders in patients aged > 70 years surviving after hospital admission for SARS-CoV-2.

Methods: Patients aged > 70 years, discharged after hospitalization with COVID-19.

Outcome Variables: mortality, readmissions, functional and cognitive impairment, anorexia and mood disorder.

Health economic analyses of the justice community opioid innovation network (JCOIN).

The Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) will generate real-world evidence to address the unique needs of people with opioid use disorder (OUD) in justice settings. Evidence regarding the economic value of OUD interventions in justice populations is limited. Moreover, the variation in economic study designs is a barrier to defining specific interventions as broadly cost-effective.

The state of clinical outcome assessments for cannabis use disorder clinical trials: A review and research agenda.

There is considerable variability in the use of outcome measures in clinical trials for cannabis use disorder (CUD), and a lack of consensus regarding optimal outcomes may have hindered development and approval of new pharmacotherapies. The goal of this paper is to summarize an evaluation of assessment measures and clinical endpoints for CUD clinical trials, and propose a research agenda and priorities to improve CUD clinical outcome assessments. The primary recommendation is that sustained abstinence from cannabis should not be considered the primary outcome for all CUD clinical trials as it has multiple limitations.

Craving and opioid use disorder: A scoping review.

Introduction: The subjective experience of drug craving is a prominent and common clinical phenomenon for many individuals diagnosed with opioid use disorder (OUD), and could be a valuable clinical endpoint in medication development studies. The purpose of this scoping review is to provide an overview and critical analysis of opioid craving assessments located in the published literature examining OUD.

Method: Studies were identified through a search of PubMed, Embase, and PsychInfo databases and included for review if opioid craving was the focus and participants were diagnosed with or in treatment for OUD.

[Effect of the population in collective dwellings on small-area mortality risk estimation in the Basque Country region (Spain)].

Objective: To quantify the effect of the inclusion of the population in collective dwellings on the estimation of mortality risk in the census areas of the Basque Country (Spain) for the main causes of mortality in the period 1996-2003.

Method: Small-area ecological cross-sectional study. The main causes of mortality by sex were analyzed.

Cardiorespiratory fitness and development of abdominal obesity.

Both, cardiorespiratory fitness and abdominal obesity are independently associated with developing cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. However, the relationship between both attributes is unclear. We examine the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and the risk of developing abdominal obesity, and secondarily, other adiposity measures.

[Small area estimation of health indicators based on data from the Basque Country Health Survey].

Health surveys are a key tool for decision-making in health policies and health services planning. The use of small-area statistical methods that use information at different geographic levels may be useful for estimating health indicators at a lower geographical level than originally considered in the survey design.

A Survey of Payer Perspectives on Cannabis Use Disorder.

Background: Cannabis use disorder (CUD) as described/defined in DSM 5, is characterized by impaired control of marijuana use and related personal, health, and legal consequences. CUD is a serious public health problem, affecting nearly 6 million individuals in the United States. There are no FDA approved medications to treat this disorder.

Biomedical ethics and clinical oversight in multisite observational neuroimaging studies with children and adolescents: The ABCD experience.

Observational neuroimaging studies with children and adolescents may identify neurological anomalies and other clinically relevant findings. Planning for the management of this information involves ethical considerations that may influence informed consent, confidentiality, and communication with participants about assessment results. Biomedical ethics principles include respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Measures That Identify Prescription Medication Misuse, Abuse, and Related Events in Clinical Trials: ACTTION Critique and Recommended Considerations.

Unlabelled: Accurate assessment of inappropriate medication use events (ie, misuse, abuse, and related events) occurring in clinical trials is an important component in evaluating a medication's abuse potential. A meeting was convened to review all instruments measuring such events in clinical trials according to previously published standardized terminology and definitions. Only 2 approaches have been reported that are specifically designed to identify and classify misuse, abuse, and related events occurring in clinical trials, rather than to measure an individual's risk of using a medication inappropriately: the Self-Reported Misuse, Abuse, and Diversion (SR-MAD) instrument and the Misuse, Abuse, and Diversion Drug Event Reporting System (MADDERS).

Microvascular replantation of head and neck amputated parts: A systematic review.

Background: As opposed to upper and lower extremity amputations representing a considerable volume of admissions, the prowess of microsurgeons is seldom solicited in complex cases of head and neck replantation. Our aim was to determine the rate of successful replantation of craniofacial parts in a systematic review of the literature.

Methods: We performed a systematic review of English literature using PubMed/MEDLINE for every replantation of a head and neck parts.

A comparison of network sampling designs for a hidden population of drug users: Random walk vs. respondent-driven sampling.

Both random walk and respondent-driven sampling (RDS) exploit social networks and may reduce biases introduced by earlier methods for sampling from hidden populations. Although RDS has become much more widely used by social researchers than random walk (RW), there has been little discussion of the tradeoffs in choosing RDS over RW. This paper compares experiences of implementing RW and RDS to recruit drug users to a network-based study in Houston, Texas.

Measures of outcome for stimulant trials: ACTTION recommendations and research agenda.

Background: The development and approval of an efficacious pharmacotherapy for stimulant use disorders has been limited by the lack of a meaningful indicator of treatment success, other than sustained abstinence.

Methods: In March, 2015, a meeting sponsored by Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks (ACTTION) was convened to discuss the current state of the evidence regarding meaningful outcome measures in clinical trials for stimulant use disorders. Attendees included members of academia, funding and regulatory agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare organizations.

Randomized Trial of Reduced-Nicotine Standards for Cigarettes.

Background: The Food and Drug Administration can set standards that reduce the nicotine content of cigarettes.

Methods: We conducted a double-blind, parallel, randomized clinical trial between June 2013 and July 2014 at 10 sites. Eligibility criteria included an age of 18 years or older, smoking of five or more cigarettes per day, and no current interest in quitting smoking.

Lessons from collaborative governance and sociobiology theories for reinforcing sustained cooperation: a government food security case study.

Objectives: This research aimed to understand how cooperation and collaboration work in interagency arrangements using a case study of the public management of food security and nutrition in Bogotá, Colombia.

Study Design: This study explored the available scientific literature on Collaborative Governance within the Public Management body of knowledge and the literature on Cooperation from the Sociobiology field. Then, proposals were developed for testing on the ground through an action-research effort that was documented as a case study.

A longitudinal study of stress-induced hippocampal volume changes in mice that are susceptible or resilient to chronic social defeat.

Hippocampal shrinkage is a commonly found neuroanatomical change in stress-related mood disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). Since the onset and severity of these disorders have been found to be closely related to stressful life events, and as stress alone has been shown to reduce hippocampal volume in animal studies, vulnerability to mood disorders may be related to a susceptibility to stress-induced hippocampal shrinkage. However, a smaller hippocampal volume before stress exposure has also been suggested to confer vulnerability of stressed individuals to PTSD or depression.