The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has awarded a five-year, $8.9 million grant to Penn Medicine's PET Addiction Center of Excellence (PACE) to research disorders associated with opioid use.
Psychiatry and radiology researchers from Penn Medicine and PACE will collaborate with researchers at the Yale University PET Center to explore the opioid epidemic through neuroimaging and develop treatments for people who are addicted to the drugs.
"There is a clear and growing need for improved treatment options for patients with opioid use disorder," noted Dr. Henry Kranzler, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, in a statement. "With this new [PACE] center, researchers from radiology, psychiatry, and addiction science will come together to employ innovative PET approaches that can yield new insights into key neural mechanisms underlying these disorders. Our hope is that these discoveries can lead to new, more precise treatments that save lives."
The researchers plan to initially focus on opioid receptors in opioid sensitivity, addiction, and suicide, using Yale and Penn-developed PET radioligands that target receptors and the role of oxidative stress and neuroinflammation.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that opioid-related overdose deaths increased by more than 50% over the last 20 years to approximately 50,000 in 2018.
