A 2026 umbrella review of 16 systematic reviews covering 371 trials found strong medication evidence for tobacco and opioid use disorders, modest benefits for alcohol use disorder, and no approved drugs for stimulant or cannabis use disorders.1 Varenicline more than doubled smoking quit rates vs. placebo, methadone kept people in opioid treatment longer than buprenorphine, …
A 53-study resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) meta-analysis found substance use disorder (SUD) linked to altered connectivity across prefrontal, striatal, thalamic, cingulate, and amygdala circuits. The most clinically relevant finding was an impulsivity correlation, not a diagnostic brain signature. Research Highlights Meta-analysis scale was meaningful: Zhang et al. pooled 53 whole-brain resting-state functional magnetic …
A 2026 randomized youth trial found that integrated exposure-based treatment reduced posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms more than supportive counseling, while substance-use changes were smaller and showed no clear treatment-specific advantage. Research Highlights COPE-A reduced PTSD more: youth receiving Concurrent Treatment of PTSD and Substance Use Disorders Using Prolonged Exposure – Adolescent version had a 17.00-point …
A 2026 medRxiv preprint interviewed 15 health-system stakeholders about CARES, a freestanding addiction-risk screening platform, and found a clear implementation split: people wanted better substance-use prevention tools than current clinic screening, but provider burden, stigma, knowledge gaps, and medical-record liability could block uptake.1 Research Highlights Stakeholders saw a screening gap: all 15 interviewees held leadership …
A Global Burden of Disease analysis estimated that U.S. age-standardized substance-use disorder disability-adjusted life-year rates rose 213.5% from 1990 to 2019, with opioid use disorders producing the steepest increase and the largest state-level burden.1 Research Highlights U.S. cases rose sharply: prevalent substance-use disorder cases increased from 12.6 million in 1990 to 19.5 million in 2019.1 …
A 2026 nationally-representative study by Johnson, Parker, and Wade in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry tested ACE-style screening in 7,608 Canadian adults and replicated what US, UK, and New Zealand cohorts already found: predictive accuracy is poor, with AUCs of 0.62 to 0.67 across anxiety, mood, substance use, and suicidality — all below the conventional …
Psychiatric brain biomarkers have produced a large research literature but little routine clinical use. A 2026 evidence map found 441 primary studies and 27 systematic reviews of neuroimaging or neurophysiologic biomarkers for mental-health disorders, yet the field still looks too small, cross-sectional, and depression-heavy for ordinary diagnostic or treatment decisions.1 Research Highlights Large map, weak …