Medical Xpress shares article about Daigle’s opioid-dependency study

Medical Xpress printed a University of Maine article about Katrina Daigle’s study that found mothers being treated for opioid-dependency showed impaired responsiveness and sensitivity to their babies, compared to mothers not dependent on opioids but similar in socioeconomic and lifestyle factors. The deficits were associated with reduced oxytocin (OT) release. OT, which is made in the hypothalamus of the brain, is normally released during mothers’ interactions with their babies, as well as during lactation and labor. Daigle, from Glenburn Maine, made the discoveries when she was a psychology graduate student at UMaine. She’s now a clinical psychology doctoral student at Suffolk University and a graduate study research assistant in the Chu Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital.