{"doi":"10.1172/jci143990","title":"The 5α-reductase inhibitor finasteride reduces opioid self-administration in animal models of opioid use disorder","abstract":"Opioid use disorder (OUD) has become a leading cause of death in the United States, yet current therapeutic strategies remain highly inadequate. To identify potential treatments for OUD, we screened a targeted selection of over 100 drugs using a recently developed opioid self-administration assay in zebrafish. This paradigm showed that finasteride, a steroidogenesis inhibitor approved for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia and androgenetic alopecia, reduced self-administration of multiple opioids without affecting locomotion or feeding behavior. These findings were confirmed in rats; furthermore, finasteride reduced the physical signs associated with opioid withdrawal. In rat models of neuropathic pain, finasteride did not alter the antinociceptive effect of opioids and reduced withdrawal-induced hyperalgesia. Steroidomic analyses of the brains of fish treated with finasteride revealed a significant increase in dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS). Treatment with precursors of DHEAS reduced opioid self-administration in zebrafish in a fashion akin to the effects of finasteride. These results highlight the importance of steroidogenic pathways as a rich source of therapeutic targets for OUD and point to the potential of finasteride as a new treatment option for this disorder.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Investigation","year":2021,"id":175316,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":22,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9562,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":446764,"name":"Roberto Cadeddu","orcid":"0000-0002-9860-5344","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":446763,"name":"Gabriele Floris","orcid":"0000-0002-5818-774X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":584276,"name":"Ryan D. Farero","orcid":"0000-0003-2147-0426","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":584277,"name":"Eva Vigato","orcid":"0000-0002-7034-1842","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":584278,"name":"Suhjung Janet Lee","orcid":"0000-0003-1382-3236","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":584279,"name":"Tejia Zhang","orcid":"0000-0003-0694-7134","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":584280,"name":"Nilesh W. Gaikwad","orcid":"0000-0002-4087-3266","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":434066,"name":"Kristen A. Keefe","orcid":"0000-0003-3242-461X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":384760,"name":"Paul E. M. Phillips","orcid":"0000-0002-8749-7026","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264567,"name":"Marco Bortolato","orcid":"0000-0002-4498-9637","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":268421,"name":"Randall T. Peterson","orcid":"0000-0003-0727-3469","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":348085,"name":"Gabriel D. Bossé","orcid":"0000-0002-1595-630X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":103,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:11.249697Z","pmid":"33848264","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}