Alcohol and Opioid Addiction-Scope, Mechanisms and Treatment Strategies
A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2018) | Viewed by 24978
Special Issue Editor
Interests: nanoparticle synthesis; nanomedicine; nanotoxicology; alcoholism; withdrawal syndrome; inflammation; oxidative stress; puerarin; curcumin; neurotoxicity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Alcohol and opioid (such as heroin, morphine, and prescription pain relievers) abuses are serious global problems affecting the health, social, and economic welfare of all societies. In the United States, approximately 15.1 million adults ages 18 and older suffer alcohol abuse disorder. This includes 9.8 million men and 5.3 million women. It is also estimated that between 26.4 to 36 million people abuse opioids worldwide, of which an estimated 2.1 million people reside in the United. A unique aspect of alcoholism and opioid addiction is their comorbidity. People addicted to opioids often abuse alcohol and, concomitantly, alcoholics are more susceptible to abusing recreational or prescription opioids. Alcohol, when taken with opioids, increases central nervous system depression, thus increasing the risk for overdose. According to a report from Food Drug Administration (FDA), alcohol was involved in (i) 18.5% of opioids and 27.2% of benzodiazepine drug abuse-related Emergency visits and (ii) 22.1% of OPR and 21.4% of benzodiazepine drug-related deaths. These findings substantiate the contention that alcohol plays a significant role in opioid abuse and vice versa. Although mechanisms underlying the alcohol-opioid comorbidity is not fully understood, alcohol and opioids both may activate opioid receptors, inhibit GABA and dopamine signaling, and activate glutamate receptors. An understanding of the precise mechanisms of alcoholism and opioid addiction will help develop interventions to reduce the abuse of alcohol and opioids alone and in combination. Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to publish manuscripts in different aspects of alcoholism and opioid addiction. In general, manuscripts related to the following topics are being solicited.
- Global prevalence of alcoholism and opioid addiction
- Multifaceted mechanisms of alcohol and opioid addictions.
- Opioid-ethanol interaction: socio-psychological, mechanistic, addictive and clinical studies.
- Metabolism, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of ethanol and opioids (external and/or internal peptides), alone or in combination.
- Current and future therapeutic (pharmacological, genomic, genetic, nano-therapeutic and stem cell mediated therapy) strategies against alcoholism and opioid addiction.
- Other topics related to addiction mechanisms and therapeutics.
Dr. Ashok K. Singh
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Alcoholism
- opioids
- addiction
- comorbidity
- opioid-ethanol interaction
- socio-psychology
- pharmacotherapy
- gene therapy
- stem cells
- brain mechanisms
- pharmacokinetics
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