BrainPod is the podcast from the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, produced in association with Nature Publishing Group. Join us as we delve into the latest basic and clinical research that advance our understanding of the brain and behavior, featuring highlighted content from a top journal in fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, and pharmacology. For complete access to the original papers and reviews featured in this podcast, subscribe to Neuropsychopharmacology.
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Shared genetic architecture and neurobiological pathways of problematic alcohol use and anxiety disorders
Problematic alcohol use frequently occurs in conjunction with anxiety disorders. Between 20 to 40 percent of individuals with anxiety disorders are also diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. Anxiety can lead people to use alcohol to self-medicate, and disordered alcohol use can cause increased anxiety for people when they go through withdrawal.
Joshua Gray is an associate professor in the department of psychology at Uniformed Services University, and one of the authors of a new study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. For the study, he and his colleagues drew on data from biobanks that originally included more than a million individuals. The samples were then modified to minimize overlap between the datasets, and the team ended up with about 860,000 individuals in the problematic alcohol use analysis and about 620,000 in the anxiety analysis.
Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-026-02494-z
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2 Jul 2026
Examining fronto-limbic brain and sleep mechanisms of antidepressant effects in cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia
Insomnia and depression are two serious and debilitating conditions. Insomnia on its own is linked to an increase in suicide risk, and insomnia can also exacerbate the severity of depression.
Andrea Goldstein-Piekarski, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, and Adam Krause, post-doctoral research fellow in Stanford’s psychiatry department, are two of the authors of a recent study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBTI, is the gold standard for treating insomnia, and it’s been shown to relieve depressive symptoms as well.
Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-026-02431-0
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15 May 2026
Incentive salience, not psychomotor sensitization or tolerance, drives escalation of cocaine self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats
There are a number of theories that have been studied to try to explain addiction and drug use escalation, and thus to also create animal models of that behavior that can then serve to help develop treatments. One theory for escalation is that people feel worse and worse over time and so they take the drug to feel better. Another is that they just don’t get as much of a reaction to the drug and so need more and more of it to get the euphoria. And then there’s something called incentive salience, which is a craving for the drug.
Read the full study here: Incentive salience, not psychomotor sensitization or tolerance, drives escalation of cocaine self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats | Neuropsychopharmacology (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-026-02350-0)
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YouTube views
45,937
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.0 / 5
15 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 49 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
28
Social presence
0
YouTube
85
Engagement
92
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