Prison Release as a Neuropeptide Stress Test: Advancing Continuous, Allostatic Addiction Care

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The article proposes studying prison release as a biologically and socially continuous transition, not as separate custody and community episodes.
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The “carceral allostatic amplifier” is a conditional, falsifiable construct describing possible within-person deterioration in stress regulation across custody and re-entry.
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Candidate stress-promoting neuropeptides include CRF, dynorphin–kappa opioid receptor, and orexin; NPY, nociceptin, and context-dependent oxytocin are counter-regulatory candidates.
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Peripheral neuropeptide concentrations are indirect measures and cannot be equated with synaptic release, receptor activity, or signaling in specific brain circuits.
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The proposed research agenda calls for repeated assessments across custody and re-entry and tests whether peptide trajectories add predictive information beyond contextual and clinical measures.

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