Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
addClaim

Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound: An Intervention for Fentanyl Addiction Relapse

Authors: Olaitan, Greatness;

Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound: An Intervention for Fentanyl Addiction Relapse

Abstract

Fentanyl use disorder (FUD) drives a persistent public health crisis characterized by high overdose mortality, polysubstance use, and relapse rates >50% despite medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). Although U.S. drug overdose deaths declined from >110,000 in 2022–2023 to ~80,000–85,000 in 2024, synthetic opioids including fentanyl remain responsible for ~70% of cases and impose an annual economic burden exceeding $1.5 trillion. Current pharmacological treatments reduce overdose risk but are limited by incomplete reward blockade, persistent craving and anhedonia, treatment dropout, side effects, and new dependencies. Existing non-invasive neuromodulation approaches lack the spatial resolution and depth to target addiction circuitry precisely. This dissertation investigates low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU)—a non-invasive, reversible technique with millimeter-scale precision and deep brain penetration—as a novel therapeutic in a rat model of FUD. Using intermittent-access fentanyl self-administration to model human escalation and relapse, this work integrates behavioral testing, in vivo fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, bulk RNA-sequencing with cell-type deconvolution, western blotting, flow cytometry, and immunohistochemistry. Findings demonstrate temporally biphasic withdrawal: early hyperexcitability (days 1–3) with glutamatergic hyperactivity and reduced GABAergic tone, followed by late hypoactivity (days 12–15) featuring >70% dopamine depletion, anhedonia, and mesocorticolimbic synaptic collapse. Marked sex differences emerge—females show initial ~40% dopamine surges but severe late-phase AKT-mTOR shutdown, whereas males exhibit sustained GSK3β activation and excessive synaptic pruning. Prelimbic cortex-targeted LIFU enables bidirectional, frequency-dependent dopamine modulation in the nucleus accumbens: inhibitory parameters suppress release by 58%, excitatory parameters (sex-optimized) enhance it by 28–30%. Transcriptomic profiling identified 2,391 differentially expressed genes during withdrawal. Although buprenorphine reduces reinstatement and normalizes 115 fentanyl-dysregulated genes, it induces 1,044 novel remodeling genes. In contrast, phase- and sex-matched LIFU attenuates cue- and drug-primed reinstatement by 50–57%, restores excitatory/inhibitory balance and gene expression profiles, and suppresses relapse without compensatory transcriptional changes. This work establishes LIFU as a precise, non-pharmacological tool for circuit-specific restoration in FUD, providing the first preclinical evidence of phase- and sex-tailored ultrasound neuromodulation and a direct translational pathway for clinical application in opioid addiction.

Related Organizations
  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    0
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Upload OA version
Are you the author of this publication? Upload your Open Access version to Zenodo!
It’s fast and easy, just two clicks!