NIH | Kieffer Dissects Opioid Effects on the Brain
For almost as long as we’ve known about the powerful spell opium can cast on a user, scientists have been trying to learn precisely how the drug operates in the body, particularly in the brain. According to recent Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series guest Dr. Brigitte Kieffer, researchers are closer than ever to understanding, witnessing, mimicking and perhaps predicting opioids’ work within the gray matter.
Kieffer, a long-time NIH grantee and professor in the department of psychiatry at McGill University, was making her second visit to NIH in recent months. She had presented a shorter talk as part of a multi-institute-sponsored symposium, “The Opioid Crisis and the Future of Addiction and Pain Therapeutics: Opportunities, Tools and Technologies” in February.
