SynthesisPharmacological reviews2022
Sex Differences in Opioid and Psychostimulant Craving and Relapse: A Critical Review.
Synthesis in Pharmacological reviews, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 110 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
110 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 150 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ovarian Hormones and Addictive Behaviour Vulnerability: Insights From Preclinical Studies.Addiction biology · 2025Pooled it
- Novel Insights into Addiction Management: A Meta-Analysis on Intervention for Relapse Prevention.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- Neuroimaging of the effects of drug exposure or self-administration in rodents: A systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Pooled it
- The resting-state brain activity signatures for addictive disorders.Med (New York, N.Y.) · 2024Pooled it
- Applications of Immersive Virtual Reality for Illicit Substance Use: A Systematic Review.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2024Pooled it
- A gender-based secondary analysis of the ADAPT-2 combination naltrexone and bupropion treatment for methamphetamine use disorder trial.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2023Trial
- Acute glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, semaglutide, attenuates cue-, drug-, and stress-induced fentanyl seeking in male Sprague-Dawley rats.Behavioural pharmacology · 2026Article
- Robust effects of food deprivation as a relapse trigger: comparison to other stressors, and investigation of predictive individual traits in male and female rats.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Cannabidiol Attenuates Heroin Seeking in Male Rats Associated With Normalization of Discrete Neurobiological Signatures Within the Nucleus Accumbens With Subregional Specificity.Biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- Marked sex differences are observed in heroin acquisition and affective states in rats but converge to similar levels of footshock stress-induced reinstatement.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- The actions of morphine on microglia and the underlying effects on associated adverse effects.Psychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Attenuation of cue-induced heroin-seeking by the atypical antidepressant mirtazapine.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2026Article
- Involvement of the dorsal raphe serotonin system in basal and punished heroin self-administration and stress-induced reinstatement in male and female rats.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Fentanyl reinforcement history has sex-specific effects on multi-step decision-making.Neuropharmacology · 2026Article
- Methamphetamine-Fentanyl Polysubstance Administration Produces Social Deficits and Corticolimbic Stress-Reward Circuit Adaptations.Research square · 2026Article
- The role of nucleus accumbens Fos expression in sex-dependent cocaine-induced locomotion, cocaine self-administration, and primed cocaine seeking in rats.Behavioural brain research · 2026Article
- Negative affective states are not detected in rats following an intravenous self-administration regimen leading to incubation of oxycodone craving.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Incubation of oxycodone craving is associated with CP-AMPAR upregulation in D1 and A2a receptor-expressing medium spiny neurons in nucleus accumbens core and shell.Neuropharmacology · 2026Article
- Remifentanil self-administration promotes circuit- and sex-specific adaptations within the prefrontal-accumbens pathways.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
50 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
A widely held dogma in the preclinical addiction field is that females are more vulnerable than males to drug craving and relapse. Here, we first review clinical studies on sex differences in psychostimulant and opioid craving and relapse. Next, we review preclinical studies on sex differences in psychostimulant and opioid reinstatement of drug seeking after extinction of drug self-administration, and incubation of drug craving (time-dependent increase in drug seeking during abstinence). We also discuss ovarian hormones' role in relapse and craving in humans and animal models and speculate on brain mechanisms underlying their role in cocaine craving and relapse in rodent models. Finally, we discuss imaging studies on brain responses to cocaine cues and stress in men and women.The results of the clinical studies reviewed do not appear to support the notion that women are more vulnerable to psychostimulant and opioid craving and relapse. However, this conclusion is tentative because most of the studies reviewed were correlational, not sufficiently powered, and not a priori designed to detect sex differences. Additionally, imaging studies suggest sex differences in brain responses to cocaine cues and stress. The results of the preclinical studies reviewed provide evidence for sex differences in stress-induced reinstatement and incubation of cocaine craving but not cue- or cocaine-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking. These sex differences are modulated in part by ovarian hormones. In contrast, the available data do not support the notion of sex differences in craving and relapse/reinstatement for methamphetamine or opioids in rodent models. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: This systematic review summarizes clinical and preclinical studies on sex differences in psychostimulant and opioid craving and relapse. Results of the clinical studies reviewed do not appear to support the notion that women are more vulnerable to psychostimulant and opioid craving and relapse. Results of preclinical studies reviewed provide evidence for sex differences in reinstatement and incubation of cocaine seeking but not for reinstatement or incubation of methamphetamine or opioid seeking.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.