MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging 2016 | Page 20

focus on clinical applications

Fighting The Opioid Epidemic With Functional
Neuroimaging
fMRI and PET yield new understandings of the potential for abuse

Hsiao-Ying (Monica) Wey and colleagues are using functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission
tomography to find new ways to tackle addiction to opioids. Photo by Caroline Magnain.
Opioid addiction is a public health
crisis across the U.S., with more
than 47,000 lethal drug overdoses
nationwide in 2014 alone. Now, research from the MGH Martinos
Center could help to alleviate its
devastating impact.

tion in the brain with prescription
opioids. This objective measure will
help clinicians select the dose when
prescribing opioids in order to minimize the development of opioid
tolerance—which over time results
in less effective pain relief, prompts
an increase in the dose needed, and
Using state-of-the-art imaging tech- can lead to overdose. The researchniques with combined functional ers are now beginning to work with
MRI and positron emission to- clinicians to plan studies to validate
mography, the Center’s Hsiao-Ying the approach in a patient popula(Monica) Wey and colleagues are tion.
developing a way to estimate tolerance to opioids, by quantifying the In a separate but related study, they
level of opioid receptor desensitiza- are using combined fMRI and PET

to screen opioids to determine the
potential for abuse of each (all opioids are generally addictive, but
some are more so than others). This
could play an important role in determining the most effective, least
addictive painkillers, and thus in
minimizing the likelihood of abuse.