This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $118,457 to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to conduct research aimed at elucidating the genetic architecture and underpinnings of chronic pain and identifying potential novel pain medications. The key objectives are to 1) characterize the genetic liability for chronic pain and addiction, 2) estimate the causal effects of brain and...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $173,799 to support a 2-year research project at the University of Pennsylvania focused on understanding the role of the brain's endogenous opioid system in pain and placebo analgesia. The project aims to investigate the signaling dynamics and function of enkephalinergic neural populations in the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (VLPAG) and the...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the federal Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), totaling $945,966 over the period of September 30, 2024 to July 31, 2029, will support research to unravel the neurobiological mechanisms by which the neuropeptide PEN and its receptor GPR83 interact with the mu-opioid receptor (MOR) in the periaqueductal gray (PAG) region of the brain. The goal is to determine if targeting the PEN-GPR83 pathway...
This $2,103,564 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) aims to investigate the cellular mechanisms and therapeutic potential of the nuclear receptor NR4A1 in pain resolution. The grant will fund research to test whether NR4A1 in macrophages controls the resolution of inflammation and postoperative pain, whether NR4A1 agonists can promote pain resolution, and whether NR4A1...
The Department of Health and Human Services' National Institutes of Health National Institute on Drug Abuse awarded $858,000 under the Drug Abuse and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) to Western University of Health Sciences from June 2022 through May 2025. The Project Grant will support research examining pain-induced impulsivity in rats and its underlying mechanisms. Specifically, the awardee will introduce a rodent model of the cognitive component of pain using a delay discounting...
This $159,711 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) supports a study titled "Electrophysiological Dynamics of Acute Opioid Use in Human Reward, Affect, and Pain Pathways." The project aims to investigate how acute opioid administration impacts neural connectivity within brain regions associated with opioid use disorder (OUD), including the amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and pain...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $362,080 to support research on the role of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in regulating spinal cord excitability and associative opioid analgesic tolerance. The award, made on June 15, 2024, will fund a research project led by Yale University to investigate the neuronal mechanisms underlying associative tolerance to opioid analgesics....
The federal Project Grant award, titled "INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF DORSAL RAPHE NUCLEUS ENKEPHALIN NEURONS IN MOTIVATIONAL AND AFFECTIVE BEHAVIORS DURING CHRONIC PAIN," is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279). The primary goal of this $154,568 F32 award, with a performance period from June 12, 2025 to December 31, 2028, is to determine the contribution of endogenous opioids within the dorsal raphe nucleus...
This $220,668 Project Grant, awarded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), supports the development of a novel opioid adjuvant by Amalgent Therapeutics, Inc. The adjuvant aims to increase the pain-relieving efficacy of opioids, allowing for substantial reductions in opioid doses and mitigating the risks of opioid abuse, tolerance, and ineffectiveness for neuropathic pain. The project will investigate the mechanism of action...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $772,800.00 to the University of Florida to conduct research aimed at identifying and pharmacologically targeting novel modulators of the mu-opioid receptor (MOR) signaling pathway. The overarching goal is to dissociate the beneficial analgesic effects of opioids from their harmful addictive properties by developing precision pharmacological...
This National Institutes of Health National Institute on Drug Abuse Project Grant award of $234,364.35 supports research from March 1, 2021 through August 31, 2022 at clinical practices of the University of Pennsylvania located in Pennsylvania. The research aims to characterize a nociception-active basolateral amygdala to anterior cingulate cortex circuit that contributes to affective-attention pain behaviors, and determine its overlap with endogenous mu opioid receptor systems. The grant also seeks to test whether activating morphine-expressing, nociceptive anterior cingulate cortex neurons can reverse chronic pain-impaired affective-attention behaviors. This work aligns with the Drug Abuse and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) goal of developing new knowledge related to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, etiology, and consequences of drug abuse and addiction.