Featured Paper of the Month

Featured Paper of the Month – July 2025

Published in Journal of Clinical Investigation by Mehdi Farokhnia and Lorenzo Leggio of the NIDA IRP Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section.

In this study, we investigated the associations between the receipt of GLP-1RAs and change in alcohol use, using real-world electronic health record data from the largest integrated healthcare system in the U.S., the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Featured Paper of the Month – June 2025
Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by Ying Duan and  Yihong Yang of the NIDA IRP Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Section.

In this study, we confirmed the role of the mPFC-NAc pathway in behavioral flexibility using a set-shifting task in rats. We then evaluated the causal effects of mPFC-NAc activation on whole-brain activity and functional connectivity measured by functional MRI.

Featured Paper of the Month – May 2025

Published in British Journal of Pharmacology by Omar Soler-Cedeño and  Zheng-Xiong Xi of the NIDA IRP Addiction Biology Unit.

In this research paper, we investigated three compounds – cariprazine, ESG-1-60, and ESG-1-61 – as potential treatments for cocaine use disorder.

Featured Paper of the Month – April 2025

Published in Current Biology by Thorsten Kahnt of the NIDA IRP Learning and Decision-Making Unit.

In this study, we used pattern-based analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collected during a learning task to examine the information content of iPE responses in the human midbrain.

Featured Paper of the Month – March 2025

Published in Human Brain Mapping by Justine Hill and Amy Janes, et al. of the NIDA IRP Cognitive and Pharmacological Neuroimaging Unit.

In this study, we show that methylphenidate – a drug used to treat ADHD by increasing dopamine and norepinephrine – boosts the amount of time that the brain is engaged in both internal and external attention networks.

Featured Paper of the Month – February 2025

Published in Molecular Psychiatry by Rani Richardson, Leandro Vendruscolo, and Lorenzo Leggio of the NIDA IRP.

We previously found that systemic and central administration of GHSR antagonists reduced binge-like alcohol drinking, whereas a ghrelin vaccine did not. Thus, we hypothesized that central GHSR drives binge-like alcohol drinking independently of peripheral ghrelin.

Featured Paper of the Month – January 2025

Published in Nature Communications by Zhewei Zhang,  Yuji Takahashi and Geoffrey Schoenbaum et al. of the NIDA IRP Behavioral Neurophysiology Neuroscience Section.

We studied rats with hippocampus damage as they played a smell-based game. The game involved four contexts with different reward structures changing over time.

Featured Paper of the Month – December 2024

Published in Nature Communications Biology by  András H Lékó, Adriana Gregory-Flores and Lorenzo Leggio et al. of the NIDA IRP Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section.

In this study. we investigated whether the deletion of the GHSR gene (GHSR-KO) in rats can prevent or attenuate weight gain caused by a high-fat diet.

Featured Paper of the Month – November 2024

Published in Neuropsychopharmacology by  Flavia Barbano and Marisela Morales, et al. of the NIDA IRP Neuronal Networks Section.

Our study shows that activating a parallel VTA-originating glutamatergic pathway targeting the NAc shell can suppress psychostimulant-seeking behavior.

Featured Paper of the Month – October 2024

Published in Neuropharmacology by Hui Shen, Zilu Ma and Yihong Yang, et al. of the NIDA IRP Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Section.

In this study, we used the delay-discounting task (DDT) to identify rats with different levels of impulsivity.