Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded a $165,669 Project Grant to the University of California, San Diego, effective August 1, 2026, through July 31, 2028, under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279). The grant funds research to identify behavioral and neural markers of opioid withdrawal-induced risk-taking and their relationship to relapse vulnerability. The project employs a translatable rodent model utilizing the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) adapted for rats to explore opioid withdrawal-induced risky decision-making, paralleling clinical IGT performance in abstinent opioid users that predicts relapse outcomes. The research investigates how dopamine D2 receptor-expressing medium spiny neurons in the nucleus accumbens core process reward and aversion responses, and whether these neural mechanisms represent a shared process driving both risky behavior and relapse vulnerability during opioid withdrawal.

The project addresses a critical public health need, as synthetic opioids—primarily fentanyl—remain the leading cause of lethal overdoses in the United States, with deaths rising 7.5-fold over the past decade and relapse after detoxification contributing significantly to fatal overdose risk. By establishing causal relationships between opioid withdrawal-induced cognitive symptoms and relapse, this research is intended to improve understanding of addiction vulnerability and inform future treatment interventions. The award supports Aim 1 (K99 phase) validation of the rat IGT as a preclinical analog to clinical measures, and Aims 2-3 (R00 phase) utilizing fiber photometry to measure in vivo activity of nucleus accumbens neurons during opioid self-administration and withdrawal paradigms.