Safety, feasibility, and acceptability of MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of co-occurring alcohol use disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder in veterans.
Rachel Cassidy recently was interviewed about the potential for the FDA's newly announced nicotine reduction policy to affect smokers. "We don't want to create a prohibition on nicotine. What we want is for people to shift from combustible cigarettes, which are incredibly harmful — they kill half the people who use them past the age of 40 — to other forms of nicotine which are far less harmful," Cassidy said.
Drs. Gunn, Aston, and Metrik published a review paper, "Patterns of cannabis and alcohol co-use: Substitution versus complementary effects" in Alcohol Research: Current Reviews. (image credit: Jorge Láscar, Wikimedia Commons)
CAAS Senior Research Assistant Jake Tempchin will matriculate this fall at the University of Memphis in pursuit of a PhD in clinical psychology. He will study with Dr. Jim Murphy, focusing on behavioral economics, motivational interviewing, and the implementation of interventions to reduce harms experienced from substance use.
Dr. David Zelaya recently published "Psychometric validation and extension of the LGBT people of Color Microaggressions Scale with a sample of sexual minority BIPOC college students" in the journal Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. Dr. Zelaya's research provides further rigorous statistical support and evidence for researchers and clinicians to use the LGBT People of Color Microaggressions Scale. Additionally, findings from the study allows for more nuanced ways to capture the frequency (i.e., within the past year and lifetime) and appraisal of stress associated with intersectional forms of discrimination.
Dr. Christy Capone and colleagues recently published primary outcomes of an RCT funded by the DoD examining a psychotherapy focused on trauma-related guilt and shame in post-9/11 veterans. Results found that Trauma Informed Guilt Reduction (TrIGR) resulted in significant reductions in guilt and PTSD and depressive symptoms as compared to Supportive Care Therapy. The research appears in the journal Depression and Anxiety.
Matthew Meisel had a paper accepted for publication in the journal BMC Psychology. In the manuscript, in a sample of emerging adults who never attended 4-year college, the authors found that most of the sample experienced some form of education-based stigma and discrimination and that these experiences were associated with worse mental health symptoms.
Dr. Lauren Micalizzi, along with Brown University co-authors, recently published their manuscript "A psychometric assessment of the Brief Situational Confidence Questionnaire for Marijuana (BSCQ-M) in juvenile justice-involved youth" in Addictive Behaviors.
Highlights of the manuscript include: the study provided the first test of the psychometric properties of the BSCQ-M; findings indicated a three-factor structure; BSCQ-M scores showed convergent validity with past 30-day cannabis use; and the BSCQ-M can be implemented quickly and effectively among justice involved youth.
Dr. Becker is the ninth recipient of an NIH merit award, the second health services researcher, the first implementation scientist, and the first woman to win this award at Brown University since the program was started in 1986.
Dr. Kelli Scott and collaborators at CAAS and the Brown University Center for Evidence Synthesis in Health recently published, "Pharmacotherapy interventions for adolescent co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders: a systematic review" in Family Practice. Findings from the review suggest that pharmacotherapy for mental health is insufficient for addressing substance use, suggesting the need for additional intervention for teens with substance use problems.
Co-authors include: Drs. Sara Becker, Sarah Helseth, Ian J Saldanha, Ethan M Balk, Gaelen P Adam, Kristin J Konnyu, Dale W Steele
Dr. Nathan Kearns recently published a new first-author manuscript "Effects of bodily arousal on desire to drink alcohol among trauma-exposed college students" in Alcohol.
Generally, findings suggest that bodily arousal may only serve as an implicit, trauma-relevant interoceptive cue that increases desire to drink within a specific subset of trauma-exposed college students (i.e., individuals indexing interpersonal trauma).
These fellows will spend the next few years focused on innovative research, advanced dissemination and implementation strategies, and public education.
In a new paper, Dr. Tara White and Meg Gonsalves propose that human rights are deeply rooted in human brain science, which provides a novel evidentiary base informing the universality, scope, and content of human rights and their relationship to human dignity. Their paper, "Dignity neuroscience: universal rights are rooted in human brain science" was published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences on August 5, 2021.
Congratulations to Dr. Arryn Guy, current CAAS Postdoctoral Fellow, for being selected to receive a Loan Repayment Program award from the Clinical through the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism!
Scholars at Brown found that brain science bolsters long-held notions that people thrive when they enjoy basic human rights such as agency, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Mo Akande will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Population, Family and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health advancing her passion for preventing violence domestically and globally.
Dr. Rachel Cassidy is part of a team that received an R01 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to study the impact of new graphic warning labels for cigarillo packaging on young adult tobacco use behavior.
Dr. Aditya Khanna was recently featured in three media interviews from the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Vermont Digger discussing COVID-19 testing, the emergence of new variants, and reopening timelines.
Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Dr. Aditya Khanna, recently published in the journal Mathematical and Biosciences and Engineering.
We are thrilled to announce that Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies Faculty, Dr. Carolina Haass-Koffler, has recently been promoted to Associate Professor!
Postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Samuel Meisel, has two new first-author publications with CAAS faculty and former postdoctoral fellow co-authors in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology and Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Her poster titled, "Intervention Development to Promote Safe and Affirming Sex for Transgender Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence" presented qualitative findings from service providers working with transgender women (TW) in Rhode Island.
Dr. Kelli Scott recently published a manuscript titled, "Implementation support for contingency management: preferences of opioid treatment program leaders and staff" in Implementation Science Communications.
Dr. Helseth recently published manuscript: "What parents of adolescents in residential substance use treatment want from continuing care: A content analysis of online forum posts."
School of Public Health faculty, Drs. Murphy, Micalizzi, Sokolovsky, and Risica, along with colleagues, recently published an article titled "Motivational Interviewing Telephone Counseling to Increase Postpartum Maintenance of Abstinence from Tobacco" in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.
Dr. Kristina Jackson recently received notice of award for an R01 funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism called "Prevalence, onset and progression of substance use in adolescents and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders" as a multiple-PI with Drs. Anthony Spirito and Stephen Sheinkopf.
Dr. Brendan Jacka launched his very first study as a Principal Investigator (PI), The TAROE Pilot Study, where Dr. Jacka and his team will be looking at the experiences of layperson (non-professional) responders to opioid overdose incidents, including stress response following.