Written by Ed Cara, February 02, 2018 [Gizmodo] As doctors and scientists struggle to turn the tide of the opioid crisis, which killed more than 63,000 Americans in 2016, there are others looking further ahead, trying to create a world where addiction can’t take hold in the first place. One such approach, created by a team of scientists in the U.K., is a nasal spray that shoots a naturally produced opioid straight to the brain—seemingly without causing the euphoric high and t

By Amy Ellis Nutt, February 8, 2018 [The Washington Post] Certain patterns of genetic activity appear to be common among five distinct psychiatric disorders — autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and alcoholism — according to a new study. The paper, appearing in the journal Science, was released Thursday. Scientists analyzed data from 700 human brains, all donated either from patients who suffered one of these major psychiatric disorders or from people who had

Kristie Auman-Bauer January 23, 2018 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Opioid overdose deaths in Pennsylvania increased 37 percent in 2016, ranking the state fourth in the nation. Coming on the heels of Gov. Tom Wolf’s declaration of the opioid crisis as a disaster emergency, Penn State recently held its first University-wide summit on the opioid epidemic. The summit drew together almost 200 researchers, practitioners and educators from across the Penn State system with the goal of deve