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Addiction and Substance Use

Substance use disorder research spanning reward circuitry, craving, relapse, and treatment access.

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The research landscape

PubMed records indexed
55,595
Published in last 5 years
24,507
Active NIH grants
3,414
NIH funding
$92M

Publication volume by year

  • 1106921
  • 1043422
  • 958523
  • 1014224
  • 963025
  • 473526

Under-studied questions

Derived from the indexed PubMed literature and NIH funding record for this topic. Verify each cited paper before relying on a gap in an application.

  • Reliance on cross-sectional designs in addiction and substance use research

    Tentative

    Across the 28 most recent NIH-indexed addiction and substance use articles analyzed, 3 (11%) explicitly surface this issue in their own title or abstract. A recurring, self-reported constraint at this rate is a concrete opening rather than a general complaint.

    Evidence

    Detected in 3 of 28 abstracts (11%) by matching the language authors themselves use to describe study limitations. Counts come from cached PubMed records, not from an interpretation of them.

    Possible dissertation angle

    Design a longitudinal follow-up that measures the same constructs at multiple timepoints so temporal ordering can actually be established.

    Sources (3)

    Derived from 28 PubMed records and 3414 active NIH grants.

  • Declining publication activity in addiction and substance use

    Moderately supported

    Annual PubMed output for Addiction and Substance Use is trending down by roughly 10% per year. Declining areas are sometimes genuinely resolved, but more often attention has moved on while open questions remain — worth checking which of the two applies here.

    Evidence

    Least-squares trend across yearly PubMed counts: 2021: 11069, 2022: 10434, 2023: 9585, 2024: 10142, 2025: 9630, 2026: 4735.

    Possible dissertation angle

    Audit what was actually settled versus abandoned in this literature, and target a question that was dropped for practical rather than scientific reasons.

    Sources (4)

    Derived from 28 PubMed records and 3414 active NIH grants.

Florida faculty working on this

Recent literature

See all on PubMed