Thursday, October 29, 2026 Evidence-led medical research news
The First Cohort
Medical research, with the receipts

addiction

9 stories tagged "addiction"

Drugs & FDA

Mice Trained to Spot THC Gave the THC Answer for CBN, the Sleep-Gummy Cannabinoid

Mice given CBN twice daily for five days grew tolerant and twitched once a receptor blocker cut it off. A Canopy Growth sleep trial of CBN found about 0.5 fewer awakenings a night and missed its main measure.

Investigations

New York Keeps 51 Cents of Every Dollar Its Gamblers Lose, and the Addiction Tripwire It Just Proposed Doesn't Trip Until a $10,000 Single-Day Deposit

New York taxes sportsbooks on the money bettors lose at 51 percent and has booked $3.89 billion since 2022. The at-risk rules its Gaming Commission proposed October 9 adopt New Jersey's model, whose deposit trigger DraftKings already meets: more than $10,000 in a single day.

Drugs & FDA

After 56 Years of 'No Accepted Medical Use,' the FDA Wants Help Testing Ibogaine

Howard Lotsof said one dose ended his heroin withdrawal in 1962. The same alkaloid can stop a heart. The FDA has opened 45 days of comment on how to test it without killing anyone.

Brain & Aging

In Abstinent Mice, a Deep Brain Region More Than Doubles Its Activity Before Relapse

In mice, a deep brain region more than doubled its activity after they quit drinking, before they touched a drop again. Relapse-like drinking may be a brain adaptation, not a failure of will.

Brain & Aging

The Craving Brake Nobody Mapped: How GLP-1 Drugs Quiet Cravings From the Lateral Septum

The anti-craving effect pushing people to use a diabetes shot off-label against drinking traces to a brain region built to inhibit, not to reward, and the human evidence is still just two small trials deep.

Metabolic & Weight

Orforglipron Reaches Deep Into the Brain's Reward Circuit and Turns the Dopamine Down

In mice engineered with human GLP-1 receptors, the new oral pills reached the central amygdala, a deep reward hub, and thinned the dopamine payoff of eating for pleasure. The government's addiction institute is already watching.

Drugs & FDA

A DoD-Funded Fentanyl Vaccine Is Headed to Phase 1. Antibodies Don't Stop a Supply Chain.

A Pentagon-funded fentanyl vaccine licensed to startup ARMR Sciences will begin Phase 1 in the Netherlands in early 2026. Three decades of failed addiction vaccines, and a supply chain that runs through Chinese precursor labs, are the context the press release leaves out.

Brain & Aging

Disappointment, Not Reward, Is What Breaks a Habit. Half of Older Adults Are on Drugs That Blunt Acetylcholine.

An OIST team caught the mouse brain firing acetylcholine the moment an expected reward failed to land. That surge is what lets the animal switch strategy. Close to half of community-dwelling older adults are on drugs that block the same receptors.

Metabolic & Weight

A gut hormone keeps showing up in the brain's reward circuit, and 600,000 veterans just gave us the biggest hint yet that it matters

A VA cohort of 606,000 diabetic veterans on GLP-1 drugs showed lower risks of new substance use disorders and large drops in overdose and drug-related death versus a peer diabetes drug. The mechanism story is where it gets interesting.