The NIH Common Fund/Roadmap Epigenomics Program: Successes of a comprehensive consortium.

The NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Program was launched to deliver reference epigenomic data from human tissues and cells, develop tools and methods for analyzing the epigenome, discover novel epigenetic marks, develop methods to manipulate the epigenome, and determine epigenetic contributions to diverse human diseases. Here, we comment on the outcomes from this program: the scientific contributions made possible by a consortium approach and the challenges, benefits, and lessons learned from this group science effort.

Association Between Reduced Brain Glucose Metabolism and Cortical Thickness in Alcoholics: Evidence of Neurotoxicity.

Background: Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with reduced cortical thickness (CT) and lower cerebral metabolic rate of glucose (CMRGlu), but the correlation between these 2 measures has not been investigated.

Methods: We tested the association between CT and cerebral CMRGlu in 19 participants with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and 20 healthy controls. Participants underwent 2-Deoxy-2-[18F]fluoroglucose positron emission tomography to map CMRGlu and magnetic resonance imaging to assess CT.

Brain default-mode network dysfunction in addiction.

Aberrant patterns of brain functional connectivity in the default mode network (DMN) have been observed across different classes of substance use disorder (SUD) and are associated with craving and relapse. In addicted individuals resting functional connectivity (RSFC) of the anterior DMN, which participates in attribution of personal value and emotional regulation, tends to be decreased, whereas RSFC of the posterior DMN, which directs attention to the internal world, tends to be increased. Aberrant RSFC within the DMN is believed to contribute to impaired self-awareness, negative emotions and to ruminations in addiction.

Self-reported Medical and Nonmedical Cannabis Use Among Pregnant Women in the United States.

This study uses National Survey on Drug Use and Health data to examine prevalence and frequency of medical and nonmedical cannabis use among pregnant and nonpregnant women between 2013 and 2017.

Effect of alcohol use disorder on cellular aging.

Rationale: Human telomeres consist of tandem repeats at chromosome ends which protect chromosomal DNA from degradation. Telomere shortening occurs as part of natural aging; however, life stressors, smoking, drug use, BMI, and psychiatric disorders could disrupt cell aging and affect telomere length (TL). In this context, studies have evaluated the effects of alcohol consumption on TL; however, results have been inconsistent, which may reflect diverse drinking cut-offs and categorizations.

Brain Imaging of Taste Perception in Obesity: a Review.

Purpose Of Review: We summarize neuroimaging findings related to processing of taste (fat, salt, umami, bitter, and sour) in the brain and how they influence hedonic responses and eating behaviors and their role in obesity.

Recent Findings: Neuroimaging studies in obese individuals have revealed alterations in reward/motivation, executive control/self-regulation, and limbic/affective circuits that are implicated in food and drug addiction. Psychophysical studies show that sensory properties of food ingredients may be associated with anthropometric and neurocognitive outcomes in obesity.

Opioid-galanin receptor heteromers mediate the dopaminergic effects of opioids.

Identifying non-addictive opioid medications is a high priority in medical sciences, but μ-opioid receptors mediate both the analgesic and addictive effects of opioids. We found a significant pharmacodynamic difference between morphine and methadone that is determined entirely by heteromerization of μ-opioid receptors with galanin Gal1 receptors, rendering a profound decrease in the potency of methadone. This was explained by methadone's weaker proficiency to activate the dopaminergic system as compared to morphine and predicted a dissociation of therapeutic versus euphoric effects of methadone, which was corroborated by a significantly lower incidence of self-report of "high" in methadone-maintained patients.

Glymphatic System Function in Relation to Anesthesia and Sleep States.

The brain is one of the most metabolically active organs in the body. The brain's high energy demand associated with wakefulness persists during rapid eye movement sleep, and even during non-rapid eye movement sleep, cerebral oxygen consumption is only reduced by 20%. The active bioenergetic state parallels metabolic waste production at a higher rate than in other organs, and the lack of lymphatic vasculature in brain parenchyma is therefore a conundrum.

Management of opioid use disorder in the USA: present status and future directions.

Opioid use disorder is characterised by the persistent use of opioids despite the adverse consequences of its use. The disorder is associated with a range of mental and general medical comorbid disorders, and with increased mortality. Although genetics are important in opioid use disorder, younger age, male sex, and lower educational attainment level and income, increase the risk of opioid use disorder, as do certain psychiatric disorders (eg, other substance use disorders and mood disorders).

Correction: Striato-cortical tracts predict 12-h abstinence-induced lapse in smokers.

The original version of this article contained an error in the affiliation of Dahua Yu, which was incorrectly stated as affiliation 3 (Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging Ministry of Education, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China), when this author is actually linked to affiliation 4 (Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Image Processing, School of Information Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, Inner Mongolia 014010, People's Republic of China).

Detecting neuroinflammation in the brain following chronic alcohol exposure in rats: A comparison between in vivo and in vitro TSPO radioligand binding.

Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with neuroinflammation, which likely contributes to alcohol-related pathology. However, positron emission tomography (PET) studies using radioligands for the 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO), which is considered a biomarker of neuroinflammation, reported decreased binding in alcohol use disorder (AUD) participants compared to controls. In contrast, autoradiographic findings in alcohol exposed rats reported increases in TSPO radioligand binding.

The role of neurologists in tackling the opioid epidemic.

The opioid crisis constitutes a public health challenge at the intersection of two interrelated medical problems - opioid addiction and chronic pain. Overlap of the reward and pain circuits in the brain underlies the frequent comorbidity of chronic pain and opioid addiction, whereas inadequate support, treatment and health-care reimbursement for both of these conditions are major contributors underlying the magnitude of the problem. Neurologists are uniquely positioned to help address the opioid crisis, not only through their involvement in the management of chronic pain conditions but also because they can screen for and manage opioid use disorders.

Expectation effects on brain dopamine responses to methylphenidate in cocaine use disorder.

The response to drugs of abuse is affected by expectation, which is modulated in part by dopamine (DA), which encodes for a reward prediction error. Here we assessed the effect of expectation on methylphenidate (MP)-induced striatal DA changes in 23 participants with an active cocaine use disorder (CUD) and 23 healthy controls (HC) using [C]raclopride and PET both after placebo (PL) and after MP (0.5 mg/kg, i.

Correspondence between cerebral glucose metabolism and BOLD reveals relative power and cost in human brain.

The correspondence between cerebral glucose metabolism (indexing energy utilization) and synchronous fluctuations in blood oxygenation (indexing neuronal activity) is relevant for neuronal specialization and is affected by brain disorders. Here, we define novel measures of relative power (rPWR, extent of concurrent energy utilization and activity) and relative cost (rCST, extent that energy utilization exceeds activity), derived from FDG-PET and fMRI. We show that resting-state networks have distinct energetic signatures and that brain could be classified into major bilateral segments based on rPWR and rCST.

ADGRL3 (LPHN3) variants predict substance use disorder.

Genetic factors are strongly implicated in the susceptibility to develop externalizing syndromes such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and substance use disorder (SUD). Variants in the ADGRL3 (LPHN3) gene predispose to ADHD and predict ADHD severity, disruptive behaviors comorbidity, long-term outcome, and response to treatment. In this study, we investigated whether variants within ADGRL3 are associated with SUD, a disorder that is frequently co-morbid with ADHD.

Measurement-based care using DSM-5 for opioid use disorder: can we make opioid medication treatment more effective?

Context And Purpose: Measurement-based care (MBC) is an evidence-based health-care practice in which indicators of disease are tracked to inform clinical actions, provide feedback to patients and improve outcomes. The current opioid crisis in multiple countries provides a pressing rationale for adopting a basic MBC approach for opioid use disorder (OUD) using DSM-5 to increase treatment retention and effectiveness.

Proposal: To stimulate debate, we propose a basic MBC approach using the 11 symptoms of OUD (DSM-5) to inform the delivery of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD; including methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone) and their evaluation in office-based primary care and specialist clinics.

Neurofunctional Domains Derived From Deep Behavioral Phenotyping in Alcohol Use Disorder.

Objective: The authors evaluated whether three neurofunctional domains proposed to be critical in the addiction cycle, namely, incentive salience, negative emotionality, and executive function, could be identified through factor analysis of a deeply phenotyped clinical sample.

Methods: Clinical, behavioral, and self-report measures of addiction, personality, cognition, behavior, and exposure to early-life stress were collected as part of a screening and natural history study of alcohol use disorders in 454 individuals representing the spectrum of alcohol use and use disorders. The multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC) approach was used to identify significant predictors of the latent factors identified by the analysis.