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Summer 2024

Addictions

PEAR graphic
Fall 2016

Opiates, gender, and alternative pain relief

The WSU Spokane Program of Excellence in Addictions Research (PEAR) is a wide-ranging effort aimed at improving the understanding, treatment, and prevention of addictions.

Founded in 2006 by John Roll, senior vice chancellor at WSU Health Sciences, PEAR is today one of the primary addictions science programs at WSU, says director and assistant professor in the College of Nursing Celestina Barbosa-Leiker.

PEAR is currently in collaboration with the Spokane Regional Health District methadone clinic, led by medical director Matt Layton.

Barbosa-Leiker is working with Layton to identify individuals for a state-wide study comparing gender differences in opioid use and the ways … » More …

bad opioids
Fall 2016

Targeting the brain’s “bad opioids”

The stark reality of drug abuse hit home for Brendan Walker when two college classmates overdosed on heroin and Xanax. Their unsettling deaths steered Walker toward a career in the neuroscience of psychology and addictions.

Today, the associate professor of psychology and member of the Neuroscience Program at WSU is a leader in the study of alcohol and opioid drug dependence. His research is advancing the development of new pharmacotherapy treatments for addiction.

“Alcohol and abused opioids have a lot of similarity,” says Walker. “They both manipulate very powerful primitive systems in the brain that are critical for our motivation.”

One of those systems … » More …