Chronic Stress and Its Relation to Drug Abuse and Addiction

The summary for the Chronic Stress and Its Relation to Drug Abuse and Addiction grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the National Institutes of Health, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Chronic Stress and Its Relation to Drug Abuse and Addiction: The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is encouraging research on adaptive changes within the brain brought about by chronic stress or repeated stressors and their functional relevance to drug use, abuse, and addictive processes. The relationship between drugs of abuse such as cocaine and heroin, activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and neural substrates subserving cognitive or behavioral processes under conditions of chronic stress is complex, but studies of these relationships may provide clues as to how drugs of abuse can produce persistent changes in the brain that in turn modulate behavioral processes, including drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior. Much of the preclinical literature in the area of stress and drug use has focused on endocrine measurements and behavior in acutely stressed animals. NIDA-supported research emphasizes the role of acute stress in relapse, evaluates endocrine parameters following an acute stressor, or employs acute footshock as a stressor to maintain or reinstate drug-seeking behaviors in preclinical models. Few studies evaluate the effects of chronic stressors on neurobiological substrates, or combines the effects of stress on the neurobiology and associated behaviors related to drug use. Even fewer evaluate the effects of chronic or repeated stress during early development on drug-directed behaviors in adulthood. The purpose of this request for applications (RFA) is to encourage investigations into the neural and behavioral consequences of exposure to physiologically relevant chronic or repeated stressors that can increase our understanding of drug abuse and addiction. As drugs of abuse themselves or repeated withdrawal from drugs can also be stressors, studies examining the effects of these variables on stress systems and drug abuse relevant behavioral or cognitive measures are encouraged; however, studies focusing solely on alcohol will not be considered responsive to this RFA. Both studies using chronic or repeated stress manipulations in animals, and human laboratory-based investigations that propose to study individuals who are or continue to be chronically stressed are encouraged. Study of the neural and behavioral adaptive changes that occur in individuals chronically exposed to stress, the duration of those changes, and their relationship to drug seeking behavior and relapse to drug use are also of interest. Preclinical applications employing footshock, learned helplessness, or other physically debilitating experimental paradigms as stressors, will not be considered responsive to this RFA because data obtained under such conditions are subject to multiple interpretations.