The Weaving Healthy Families Program
Alcohol AbuseDrug Use13 moreAlcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse and violence in families are co-occurring risk factors that drive health disparities and mortality among Native Americans (NA), making the long-term goal of this research is to promote health and wellness, while preventing and reducing AOD abuse and violence in NA families by testing an efficacious, sustainable, culturally-relevant and family-centered intervention for cross-national dissemination. The central hypothesis is that the sustainable and community-based Weaving Healthy Families program, will reduce and postpone AOD use among NA adults and youth, decrease and prevent violence in families, and promote resilience and wellness (including mental health) among NA adults and youth. The expected outcomes of the proposed research are an efficacious, culturally relevant, and sustainable community based program to promote health and wellness that will address the factors that drive health disparities and promote individual, family, and community resilience.
Remote Alcohol Monitoring to Facilitate Abstinence From Alcohol: Exp 2
Alcohol Use DisorderDirectly reinforcing abstinence from alcohol with monetary incentives is an effective treatment for alcohol dependence, but barriers in obtaining frequent, verified biochemical measures of abstinence limit the dissemination of this treatment approach. As our feasibility study demonstrates, remote breathalyzer monitoring drastically improves the practicality of delivering an alcohol contingency management intervention. In Experiment 2, we will test whether the addition of remote abstinence incentives to treatment as usual improves outpatient treatment outcomes and prevents relapse following inpatient detoxification at a regional hospital system. We will also assess whether readmission rates are reduced using a newly developed smartphone app and breathalyzer.
Eye Movements Desensitization and Reprocessing Intervention in Preventing Craving in Alcohol Use...
Alcohol Use DisorderAlcohol CravingThis study is conducted to examine the effect of a psychotherapy model that is expected to affect alcohol cravings in adults aged 18-65 years who are being treated for alcohol use disorder at a clinic. The psychotherapy intervention is expected to affect other variables such as clinical symptom level, self-efficacy level, and functionality level. This protocol is called addiction-focused eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (addiction-focused EMDR). Patients found suitable for the study will be divided into experimental and control groups. The intervention will be applied to the experimental group and not to the control group. At the end of the intervention, the effect of the intervention primarily on the level of craving will be compared with that of the control group. The intervention is expected to reduce the level of craving. The intervention is expected to have an impact on the other variables mentioned as well.
Pilot Study on Training Emerging Adults Skills in Navigating College
Alcohol AbuseCognitive Deficit in AttentionLifetime risk for developing an alcohol use disorder increases with earlier onset of alcohol consumption. This risk may reflect a tendency for escalated alcohol intake among youth due to immature executive control, leading to more frequent binge drinking, which is associated with more alcohol-related problems. Binge drinking is associated with deficits in behavioral flexibility, which may suggest impaired control networks that contribute to automatic behavior. Individuals with an alcohol or substance use disorder (A/SUD) exhibit attentional bias toward drug- or alcohol-related stimuli that have attained salience through consistent use. Reward history increases attention towards non-drug stimuli, even among individuals with no lifetime A/SUD. Preliminary data (from Dr. Boettiger's lab) from a nationally representative US adult sample using data collected via Prolific found that a questionnaire measure of mindfulness moderates the relationship between alcohol misuse and attention to reward. Given evidence that heavy alcohol drinking impairs behavioral flexibility, which in turn promotes escalating intake, insight into the relationship between mindfulness and behavioral flexibility could inspire new strategies to prevent alcohol and substance use disorders in people at elevated risk.
Semaglutide for Alcohol Use Disorder
Alcohol Use DisorderCigarette SmokingPharmacotherapy development remains a critical objective for reducing health and societal burdens associated with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Developing targeted treatments for specific AUD subgroups is a key aim under the NIAAA medication development strategy. Among those with AUD, cigarette smokers comprise a sizable and critical subgroup with disproportionally high long-term health risks, making it a key priority to advance therapies for concurrent AUD and cigarette smoking. Recent preclinical evidence indicates that glucagon-type peptide-1, an incretin hormone, impacts both alcohol and nicotine motivation and intake. This project will utilize human laboratory screening procedures to evaluate a GLP-1 receptor agonist as a novel candidate therapy for smokers with AUD. Participants who meet criteria for AUD and report smoking will complete laboratory alcohol administration procedures while receiving medication or placebo. This study will provide initial human data on the effects of a GLP-1 receptor agonist in relation to alcohol-related outcomes, including both alcohol and nicotine motivation, in participants with AUD. Validation of a candidate monotherapy for joint alcohol and nicotine reduction could have substantial public health impact.
Alcohol and Cannabis Concentrates Co-Administration
Alcohol Use DisorderCannabis UseThe goal of this study is to learn about the effects of combining alcohol with cannabis concentrate products which contain high levels of THC. The main question[s] it aims to answer are, 1) How does the order in which someone consumes THC and alcohol in a given co-use session impact outcomes such as blood alcohol level, heart rate or subjective drug effects, and 2) how does THC percentage in cannabis influence outcomes following alcohol and cannabis co-administration. Participants will be scheduled for our mobile lab to come to their residence. During the session, they will: consume a standardized dose of alcohol as well as use their own preferred cannabis concentrate product. they will then remain in our mobile lab for about 4 hours and complete some surveys as well as do some cognitive tasks on an iPad every 30 minutes. They will also have their blood drawn three times throughout the session, and will periodically be asked to blood into a breathalyzer to measure blood alcohol level. Researchers will compare people who use alcohol prior to cannabis to those who use cannabis prior to alcohol to determine whether order of use impacts outcomes.
Effectiveness of a WeChat-based Alcohol Consumption Intervention Mini-program ("Sober Time ACT")...
Alcohol Use DisorderAlcohol AbuseThe purpose of this study is to explore whether "Sober Time ACT", a digital intervention tool for alcohol use developed based on wechat mini program, is effective in improving risky alcohol use among Chinese local drinkers.
Increasing the Temporal Window in Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorder
Alcohol Use DisorderEpisodic future thinking (EFT) is based on the new science of prospection, which was first identified in a Science publication in 2007 and refers to pre-experiencing the future by simulation. Considerable evidence suggests that prospection is important for understanding human cognition, affect, motivation, and action. Individuals with damaged frontal areas, as well as individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD), show deficits in planning prospectively. One systematic method to engender prospection is via EFT. EFT, as applied in our prior studies and in this proposal consists of having participants develop positive plausible future events that correspond to several future time frames (e.g., 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months etc). For each of these timeframes participants are asked to concretize the events (e.g., What are you doing? Who will be there? What will you see, hear, smell, and feel?). We and others have used EFT to decrease delay discounting (DD) in individuals with AUD and smokers, as well as normal weight, overweight, and obese populations when compared to the control condition, control episodic thinking (CET). Consistent with reinforcer pathology, EFT also reduces alcohol valuation in the purchase task among individuals with AUD. However, no study to date has examined whether EFT reduces alcohol self-administration in the laboratory. Moreover, the neural correlates of EFT in AUD are also unknown. In these studies, we propose to test an intervention, EFT, which we hypothesize will decrease reinforcer pathology measures in a bar-like setting in the laboratory; that is, EFT will decrease delay discounting, as well as alcohol self-administration, demand, and craving compared to a control episodic thinking (CET) condition. Moreover, we hypothesize EFT will enhance activation in brain regions associated with prospection (e.g., hippocampus and amygdala) and the executive decision system (e.g., DLPFC). We will also examine the effect of EFT on real-world drinking.
Human Alcohol Seeking Despite Aversion
Alcohol AbuseProlonged alcohol use results in drinking despite resultant problems and adverse consequences. The investigators propose to test a laboratory model of human seeking despite aversion to use as an early marker of disease onset, and as a tool for study of its neural functional substrates, and identification of effective treatments.
Sex Differences in the Response to Abstinence From Alcohol.
Alcohol Use DisorderIn laboratory animals, repeated cycles of abstinence from and return to alcohol drinking can lead to changes in alcohol intake. In a study of the effect of abstinence on drinking in humans, the investigators found evidence that abstinence affects drinking differently in women compared to men. In the present study, the investigators propose to study how men and women respond to abstinence, and whether this information can be used to improve intervention and prevention strategies.