Although stress has long been linked to substance use, craving and relapse, there are no
available medications that target stress-induced substance use disorder (SUD). In particular,
with the rise in opioid use, there is still a crucial need for developing effective
pharmacological treatments that target and integrate the complexity of this disease. The long
term goal of this project is to identify the key neuroendocrine pathways that are responsible
for stress-induced craving in individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) in order to better
understand how they can be effectively treated.