Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This review explains the fast-growing problem of so-called "legal highs", which are better called novel psychoactive substances or NPS. Unknown labs keep making slightly different chemicals to avoid bans, and this led to about 80 new substances being spotted in one year. The paper groups these drugs into five main…
Researchers looked at sixty studies to see how biology, social life, and psychology mix together to affect substance use problems and mental health. They found that brain systems, genes, childhood experiences, parenting, personality, and existing mood or anxiety problems all interact. This makes addiction and related psychiatric symptoms complicated, especially…
This paper reviews what medicines have been tested to treat methamphetamine use disorder in animals and people. The authors say there are still no approved drugs that reliably cut cravings or help people stop using meth. Some medicines helped in animal tests but did not lower meth use in people,…
Researchers interviewed 50 traditional medicine practitioners in a rural district of southwestern Uganda to record which plants they use to treat problems linked to drinking alcohol. They found 25 different plant species and clear patterns in how healers prepare and give these remedies, for example using leaves and drying plants…
This paper is a first look at whether the fast-acting psychedelic 5‑MeO‑DMT might help people with alcohol use disorder. The authors reviewed existing studies in humans and animals and found early signs that 5‑MeO‑DMT can cause intense mystical feelings and a loss of self-boundaries, and that it changes brain rhythms…
Researchers tested a type of artificial intelligence that reads doctors' notes to find how severe different substance use problems are. They used an open-source AI model called Flan-T5 and gave it carefully written instructions so it could find severity details without extra training. The AI found more of these severity…
This review explains how certain psychoactive drugs can cause hallucinations and why that matters. It says drugs such as psilocybin and LSD change brain chemicals called serotonin and dopamine, and that can make people see or hear things that are not there. Effects can be mild or very serious, sometimes…
