This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), will support research on the relationship between sleep disturbances and drug motivation during abstinence from cocaine use disorder (CUD). The $372,867 award to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey will fund a 5-year study examining the role of orexin (hypocretin) signaling in the ventral tegmental area as a potential common neurobiological mechanism linking sleep disruption and persistent drug craving in early and protracted cocaine abstinence. The research aims to determine if chemogenetic manipulation of orexin neurons and their projections can improve sleep and reduce cocaine demand in an animal model, as well as assess the potential utility of repurposing the FDA-approved dual orexin receptor antagonist suvorexant for CUD treatment. The findings could lead to the development of orexin-based interventions to address both sleep disturbances and drug motivation during cocaine abstinence.
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