Mark GreenwaldA Wayne State University professor was given a $1.55 million grant to explore the links between drug use and stress and the impact of economics on drug users' choices.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse awarded the grant to psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences professor Mark Greenwald, who will study a group of 30 heroin users over the next three years and how drug-induced stress influences their decision to seek money or drugs.
Greenwald says that while there is medication to treat addiction and abuse, there is no medication to treat stress. The study could also affect treatment of other addictions or obesity.
"In biological terms, stress means pushing the organism beyond its normal homeostatic limits so that it’s forced to adapt to a more challenging situation, and that produces both biological and behavioral effects," Greenwald said. "Those are things we’re capable of measuring in a controlled, experimental human laboratory setting."
The drug-addicted users participating in the study will be presented with opportunities to work for an opioid similar to heroin, but each choice they make leads to an increased "cost" to earn the drug. Researchers will then observe how stressors influence their drug-seeking behavior.