National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Changes to the Certificate of Confidentiality application process As of October 22, 2018 , all Certificate of Confidentiality (Certificate) requests for non-NIH funded research will be processed by the National Institutes of Health, Office of Extramural Research (OER). All extensions and amendments to previously issued Certificates for non-NIH funded research will also be processed by NIH/OER. For more information, please...

The National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, and the National Cancer Advisory Board Joint Meeting Thursday, December 13, 2012 11:30 am to 1:00 pm ET 1-888-324-8014 (toll-free); Passcode is 4418818 Agenda 11:30 am Call to Order Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D., Principal Deputy Director, NIH Review of Policy and Procedures Justin...

June 30, 2015

On March 25, 2015, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent and neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta (middle) met with NIAAA Director Dr. George Koob (right) in the laboratory of Dr. Lorenzo Leggio (left). Dr. Leggio is chief of the Section on Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology, which is run jointly by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute...

A study reported in the October issue of Gastroenterology (Volume 177, pages 1-12) shows that tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), a pro-inflammatory protein, plays an important role in the development of early liver damage associated with alcohol consumption. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) found that wild-type mice fed alcohol continuously over four weeks exhibited liver...

A new grant will help establish a core of post-graduate addiction medicine education programs in academic medical centers throughout the United States. The National Infrastructure for Translating Addiction Research into Clinical Practice grant, awarded last month to the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, will provide about $900,000 over a two-year period. The grant was awarded by...

75 percent report not receiving any form of treatment A survey of American adults revealed that drug use disorder is common, co-occurs with a range of mental health disorders and often goes untreated. The study, funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, found that about 4 percent of Americans...

Mon, 03/31/2014 - 12:00

Mon, 03/31/2014 - 12:00

Alcohol produces a wide range of pharmacological effects on the nervous system through its actions on ion channels. The molecular mechanism underlying ethanol modulation of ion channels is poorly understood. NIAAA scientists used a unique method of alcohol-tagging to demonstrate that alcohol activation of a G-protein-gated inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK or Kir3) channel is mediated by a defined alcohol pocket...

July 1, 2016

The Substance Abuse Librarians and Information Specialists (SALIS), in partnership with NIAAA and a nonprofit digital library called the Internet Archive (IA), are working to digitize the literature of the alcohol-and-other-drugs field that is not already available online—specifically, books and government documents. To date, this digitization (or “Digs”) project has posted 758 items, ranging from the basic to social sciences...

Wednesday, April 10, 2019, 2:00 pm EDT

Join us for a webinar on Apr 10, 2019 at 2:00 PM EDT. Register now! Among adults 18 and older, alcohol use is increasing, particularly for females. Alcohol use among middle- and high-school students is declining, but primarily for young males. Previously large gaps in alcohol use for teen males and females have disappeared. These changing patterns are concerning given...

April 2, 2019

Join us for a webinar on Apr 10, 2019 at 2:00 PM EDT. Register now! Among adults 18 and older, alcohol use is increasing, particularly for females. Alcohol use among middle- and high-school students is declining, but primarily for young males. Previously large gaps in alcohol use for teen males and females have disappeared. These changing patterns are concerning given...

John Crabbe, Ph.D., Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Oregon Health Sciences University, Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, with colleagues in three widely separated laboratories report in this week's Science that animals with the same genes performed differently on a variety of behavioral tests depending on the animals' location. This was true although a long list of environmental influences was equalized...

Vulnerability to both alcohol and nicotine abuse may be influenced by the same genetic factor, according to a recent study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the study, two genetically distinct kinds of rat – one an innately heavy-drinking strain bred to prefer alcohol (“P” rats)...

A new study released today by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), estimates that the economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse was $246 billion in 1992, the most recent year for which sufficient data were available. This estimate represents $965 for every man...

Scientists have identified a molecular signaling pathway that plays an important role in the development of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). The new research in cells and mice, supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, points to candidate genes for FASD susceptibility and may open new avenues for developing...

Neuroimmune Mechanisms Contributing to Addiction Neurobiology - Brain Function and Alcohol Use Disorders September 2, 2014 8:30am - 2:30pm National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Terrace Level Conference Room 5635 Fishers Lane Bethesda, MD Registration - To register for the workshop, please send an email to changhai.cui@nih.gov with “Neuroimmune Workshop” in the subject line. Speakers and Panelists View the...

July 16, 2013

NIDA, NIAAA, and NCI announce the release of 2 new NOFOs to promote the goals of Collaborative Research on Addiction at NIH (CRAN; formerly known as functional integration). Its mission is to provide a strong collaborative framework for enabling NIDA, NIAAA, and NCI to pool resources and expertise, creating synergies in addiction science, addressing new research opportunities, and meeting the...

Surveys show 9.5 percent of Americans use marijuana; 30 percent of users meet criteria for a disorder The percentage of Americans who reported using marijuana in the past year more than doubled between 2001-2002 and 2012-2013, and the increase in marijuana use disorder during that time was nearly as large. Past year marijuana use rose from 4.1 percent to 9.5...

A study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health gives insight into changes in the reward circuitry of the brain that may provide resistance against cocaine addiction. Scientists found that strengthening signaling along a neural pathway that runs through the nucleus accumbens – a region of the brain involved in motivation, pleasure, and addiction – can reduce cocaine-seeking behavior...

Researchers have identified a mechanism by which the eight amino acid peptide NAP, an active fragment of a neuroprotective brain protein, protects against alcohol-induced embryo toxicity and growth retardation in mice. Their findings bring alcohol researchers a critical step closer to developing pharmacologic agents to prevent alcohol-induced fetal damage. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute...

Marijuana-like substances (endocannabinoids) intrinsic in animals and humans act at specific receptors on the blood vessel wall to produce vasodilation, the generalized blood vessel dilation seen in many patients with advanced liver cirrhosis, according to an article by George Kunos, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in the July 1 issue of Nature Medicine (Volume 7, Number 7; Endocannabinoids acting at vascular...