Andrew Stephen Huhn, Ph.D., M.B.A.

My research is focused on understanding the human experience of opioid use and opioid use disorder (OUD). The majority of my work has been in human laboratory studies and clinical trials, and I have leveraged my background in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral pharmacology to identify risk factors for illicit drug relapse and medication strategies to improve OUD treatment outcomes. These studies cover the continuum of care, including supervised opioid withdrawal and sustained recovery using medications for OUD. Topics of interest include sleep disturbance, drug craving, and diurnal measures of stress and mood. In addition, my work in OUD patients has naturally led me to investigate the tradeoffs between the abuse liability and analgesic efficacy of opioid medications, including research on persons with chronic and/or acute pain. My lab employs diverse methodological approaches to better understand opioid use and OUD, including neuroimaging, ecological momentary assessments, wearable technologies, human laboratory studies, and survey research. Taken together, this research is aimed at improving treatment outcomes directly and evaluating and strategizing macro-level changes to improve healthcare for substance use and related disorders.