Christina Gianoulakis, PhD, joined the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in 1986. She has made breakthrough contributions to understanding the role of the endogenous opioid system in mediating, at least in part, some of the reinforcing effects of alcohol. Christina Gianoulakis and her team used the in vivo microdialysis techniques to study various strains and lines of experimental animals that either prefer or avoid alcohol with major objective to elucidate the role of the endogenous opioid peptide systems in alcohol consumption. Her findings, along with those by other investigators, have provided support for the use of Naltrexone, a non-specific opioid receptor antagonist, as a treatment approved in the United States and Canada to prevent alcohol relapse by detoxified alcoholics.

Christina Gianoulakis has also investigated the role of stress in promoting alcohol consumption, as well as relapse to drinking by abstinent alcoholics. Currently she is involved in studies investigating the possibility that the strength of the cortisol response to stress used together with other tests may help to determine individuals that would repeatedly drive under the influence of alcohol or other drugs of abuse.