In 2016, more than 42,000 lives were lost due to opioid overdose. The opioid epidemic is now one of the most pressing public health questions facing the nation. Current treatments for opioid addiction are replacement therapies, such as methadone, that do not directly treat the changes in the brain produced by chronic opioid use.
The Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus welcomed Dr. Peter Kalivas, one of the nation’s leading addiction researchers, as he discussed new discoveries that are leading to cures for opioid addiction, not just a supplement for the addiction. Dr. Kalivas also discussed how the brain adapts to repeated exposure to addictive drugs and he will show how science can reverse this process.
