That’s my expectation.

You’ll have to ask NIH for what the real issue was in that decision. My guess its a trifecta: education component was seen as problematic, wanting to save money, and give a chance to newcomers.

Stripping education from basic research misses the lowest-hanging fruit and the first translational outcome of basic research. it's a missed opportunity.

The biggest issue with the P50 is the lack of an education component, though. Having applied and reviewed P60 centers multiple times, I can tell you that the education component was often the highest-rated component in these centers.

All P60 centers will be able to compete for the P50 mechanism with a fresh NEW grant application (read no progress report), although the P50 lacks the education component. The silver lining is that it is likely that it will lead to more competition, fresh ideas, and novel centers, which is good!

The institutional/training knowledge in a 20-30-40-year-old center is invaluable (although it comes with drawbacks). i'm deeply thankful for this mechanism. It’s a bittersweet goodbye.

My first ever grant was a pilot grant from a P60, which launched my career, gave me the opportunity to direct an animal core, helping me get my first R01, and was a terrific ground for training, research, and education for the alcohol field.

NIAAA's P60 Alcohol Research Center mechanism is not being renewed.
I’ve had the chance of being part of one for the last 20 years.

The Role of the Gut Microbiome in Nicotine Withdrawal and Dependence - PubMed Our results indicate that under our experimental conditions fecal transplant can reduce the severity of nicotine withdrawal. This suggests that interactions along the gut-brain axis are important for the development of nicotine dependence and might help lower the risk of cancer and other serious hea …

Fecal transplants in mice reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms, showing fewer somatic signs and anxiety-like behaviors for up to a week.
Glad I quit smoking already and don't need to try this ;-) @damajlab.bsky.social

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41874416/

You are correct diversity within sex is vastly greater than difference between sex, over one order of magnitude higher.

Link to the lab blog post with more details: www.oliviergeorge.com/post/why-we...

This work was supported by NIDA and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Full paper: Sneddon et al. (2026), Psychopharmacology.
link.springer.com/article/10....

If anyone, foundations, philanthropists, industry partners, is interested in funding fundamental research on female-specific vulnerability to addiction, please reach out. This work is too important to let die because of funding instability.

The lead author lost faith that the NIH would reliably fund this type of work and I can’t blame her. It’s devastating when politics gets in the way of doing good science. Right now, we have no active grant supporting this program.

I have to be honest about something, though. We would love to continue this work. But last year, the grant supporting this research was canceled, then reinstated 6 months later, and the damage was done.

They’re the map to understanding why one person can try a drug and walk away, while another cannot stop despite losing everything.

The bigger message: Addiction does not affect everyone equally, and the reasons why are written in our biology. Sex differences, hormonal variation, genetic diversity, these aren’t confounds to be eliminated.

We can’t understand individual differences in addiction if we keep excluding the individuals who differ.

Researchers in the field often exclude animals that are unusual (low intake, erratic behavior, irregular estrus cycle) for consistency. That means we’ve been systematically removing the very animals that may allow us to understand vulnerable human subpopulations.

Our data suggest the arrow may also point in the other direction that pre-existing hormonal dysregulation may shape who becomes most vulnerable to compulsive addiction.

Why does this matter beyond the lab? 15–25% of women experience menstrual irregularities, and those women show ~40% higher rates of mental health disorders, including substance use disorders. The causal direction is usually assumed to run one way: drugs disrupt hormones.

Footshock-resistant responding models the defining feature of severe substance use disorder: continued use despite negative consequences. The fact that pre-existing cycling irregularity predicted this specific behavior, not general intake, not motivation, but compulsive-like use is striking.

The rats with the most disrupted hormonal cycling were the ones most willing to endure pain to get cocaine.

Only footshock-resistant responding (Panel Q) showed a significant effect, rats with score 3 took significantly more cocaine despite punishment.

Wistar controls? 60% regular, right in line with published norms.

Here’s where it connects to addiction. Rats with the most severe cycling irregularities took significantly more cocaine during a session where each infusion carried a 30% chance of electric footshock.

When we looked at cycling patterns, we discovered something unprecedented. 82% of our HS rats showed irregular estrous cycling before they ever saw cocaine. Not mild irregularities, skipped phases, prolonged durations, atypical sequences. In young adults, 96% were irregular. In adults, 100%.

The answer: no. Estrous phase had no association with cocaine intake during short access, long access, or progressive ratio sessions. High vs. low estrogen groupings? No difference. This is a null finding and null findings matter. But the story gets far more interesting.

We tested whether estrous phase influences cocaine self-administration in our Heterogeneous Stock (HS) rat model, using over 400 female rats, one of the largest female cocaine datasets ever generated.

Our lab just published a paper in @PsychopharmEBPS, led by Dr. Elizabeth Sneddon, that forces us to rethink this relationship.

For decades, females were basically ignored in addiction neuroscience. Then, thanks to the NIH SABV mandates almost exactly 10 years ago, researchers started including females, and things got intriguing, some evidence suggested the estrous cycle may influence the motivation to take cocaine.

Why female-specific research is critical to understand addiction?

Association between GLP-1 receptor agonist use and worsening mental illness in people with depression and anxiety in Sweden: a national cohort study People with diabetes have an elevated risk of developing depression, anxiety, and suicide. GLP-1 receptor agonists are licensed to treat diabetes and …

Semaglutide reduces depression risk by 44%, anxiety by 38%, and substance use disorder by 47% (other GLP1s had lower or no effect).
That said, it the failed Alzheimer/GLP1 trial taught us something, it's that confirmatory RCTs are essential.
linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pi...