Opioid medications are widely prescribed to alleviate pain and suffering for millions of patients, but the utility of these drugs is limited by serious adverse effects including abuse liability, dependence, and overdose. At present, the non-medical (i.e., recreational) abuse of opioids is a worldwide public health threat. In the United States alone, more than 47,000 opioid-related overdose deaths occurred during 2017 (Scholl et al., 2018), and most of these fatalities were associated with synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl and its various analogs. Fentanyl is a mu-opioid receptor (MOP) agonist that is 50-100 times more potent than morphine as an analgesic agent. The origins of the current opioid crisis are complex, and effective solutions will require multidisciplinary cooperation among law enforcement personnel, first responders, treatment providers, policymakers, and scientists (Madras, 2018). To this end, basic research in pharmacology can provide critical information for addressing the opioid crisis (Baumann et al., 2018). In this Special Issue of Neuropharmacology, entitled “New Vistas in Opioid Pharmacology”, we bring together an international panel of experts who report research findings related to three topics: 1] neuropharmacology of heroin, fentanyl and its analogs; 2] development of safer pain medications; and 3] novel pharmacotherapies for substance use disorders.

阿片类药物被广泛地处方用于减轻数百万患者的疼痛和痛苦，但是这些药物的使用受到严重的副作用的限制，这些副作用包括滥用责任，依赖和过量。目前，阿片类药物的非医学（即娱乐性）滥用是全球性的公共卫生威胁。仅在美国，2017年就发生了超过47,000例与阿片类药物有关的过量死亡（Scholl等人，2018），这些死亡中的大多数与合成阿片类药物有关，尤其是芬太尼及其各种类似物。芬太尼是一种μ阿片受体（MOP）激动剂，比吗啡作为镇痛剂的效力高50-100倍。当前阿片类药物危机的根源很复杂，有效的解决方案将需要执法人员，急救人员，治疗提供者，政策制定者和科学家（Madras，2018）。为此，药理学的基础研究可以提供解决阿片类药物危机的关键信息（Baumann等，2018）。在本期特刊中神经药理学，名为“阿片类药物药理学的新视野”，我们召集了一个国际专家小组，他们汇报与三个主题相关的研究结果：1]海洛因，芬太尼及其类似物的神经药理学；2]开发更安全的止痛药；和3]用于药物滥用的新型药物疗法。