Preface to the Review Series Neuropharmacology of addiction

Abstract

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the third leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States (White et al., 2020), costing the US economy around $250 billion per annum (Sacks et al., 2015). Despite this, data from the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health suggest that only 7.6% of people aged 12 and over with an AUD received treatment for this condition within the last year (SAMSHA, 2022). At present, there are only three drugs approved by the FDA specifically for the treatment of AUD, namely, disulfiram, naltrexone (both oral and long-acting injectable) and acamprosate; with nalmefene also being approved by the European Medicines Agency. While some