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Opioid Coalitions Used Data and Shared Goals to Expand MOUD/Naloxone

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A 2026 qualitative case study of 8 top-performing HEALing Communities Study communities linked opioid-response implementation success to representative coalition membership, shared goals, data connectivity, and communications campaigns, not to a simple urban-vs.-rural split.1 The useful lesson is operational: coalitions worked when collaboration was turned into service reach for medication for opioid use disorder and overdose …

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150 mg Caffeine Did Not Trigger Panic in Panic Disorder Trial

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A randomized crossover trial found that 150 mg caffeine did not increase subjective anxiety, interoceptive attention, or anxiety from body sensations in 29 people with panic disorder compared with 53 healthy controls.1 The result runs opposite the hypothesis, but it does not make caffeine inert: caffeine still increased physiological arousal, costly avoidance, and attention problems …

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ED Naloxone Need: 3.87M At-Risk Visits vs. 226K Overdoses

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A 2026 emergency department claims analysis estimated 3.87 million United States ED visits in 2021 where take-home naloxone could have been clinically relevant, compared with 226,453 ED-treated opioid-overdose visits in the same database.1 The finding reframes naloxone distribution as an emergency-care workflow for overdose risk, polysubstance exposure, long-term opioid use, and patients who arrive after …

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Social Anxiety: Prefrontal Connectivity Differs but Amygdala-PFC Doesn’t

Stylized fMRI connectivity map showing prefrontal and amygdala circuits during emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder.

The textbook story of social anxiety disorder is broken amygdala-prefrontal regulation — an overactive threat system the prefrontal cortex can’t calm down. A 2026 effective-connectivity study of 102 adults found something different: amygdala-prefrontal connectivity didn’t differ between social anxiety patients and controls, but connectivity between prefrontal regions did, particularly involving the pre-supplementary motor area.1 Research …

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Ultrasound-Guided Acupotomy Reduced Chronic Spinal Pain in 32 RCTs

MHD featured image for ultrasound-guided acupotomy chronic spinal pain meta-analysis.

A 2026 meta-analysis of 32 randomized trials involving 2,669 participants found that ultrasound-guided acupotomy reduced chronic spinal musculoskeletal pain, with pain intensity improving by SMD = −0.80 and disability by SMD = −0.99 on NDI/ODI measures.1 The direction is favorable, but all trials came from China and evidence certainty stayed moderate for pain and low …

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