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 …
GLP-1 drugs are usually described as appetite drugs, but a 2026 Nature mouse study mapped a more specific reward circuit: small-molecule GLP-1 receptor agonists suppressed palatable-food intake through Glp1r-expressing central-amygdala neurons that reduced dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens during high-fat-food retrieval.1 That mechanism makes binge-eating and substance-use hypotheses more plausible without turning an animal …
A 2026 Australian interview study involving 27 adults with methamphetamine use problems found that 21 participants, or 77.8%, had never previously sought treatment for methamphetamine use. Research Highlights Most had never sought treatment: Peart et al. interviewed 27 adults and found that 77.8% had not previously sought methamphetamine treatment before entering the parent trial.1 3 …