Information Processing and Mechanisms that Underlie Drug Use and Resilience

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Clinicians often encounter a mismatch between patients stated desire to not use substances and to avoid situations that trigger substance use and patients behaviors in everyday lifewhen they are not in a treatment session. In this project, we will assess cue-induced cravings; sensation seeking and impulsivity; and information processing to better define and understand the mechanism of substance use disorders (SUDs) and resilience. Drug cues arrive via many forms of digital media including video, ads, music and print. The ability of these stimuli to interact with the brains reward system and trigger behavior plays a significant role in SUD. Understanding how these digital drug cues interact with the brains reward system to direct attention is of importance in determining the role of cue-induced drug triggers. As digital drug cue exposure is a potentially modifiable environmental variable, better comprehension of drug cue effects on attention is essential in the development of effective interventions. We will investigate attentional biases for drug cues in patients attending SUD treatment and in healthy controls while using naturalistic visual stimuli and continuous monitoring of the focus of visual attention. Sensation-seeking is defined as the desire for and engagement in varied, novel, complex, and arousing sensations and the need to take risks for the sake of such experiences. Impulsivity has been conceptualized as a lack of reflectiveness and planning, rapid decision-making and action, and carelessness. Sensation-seeking and impulsivity are thought to induce activity of the brain reward system and are associated with increases susceptibility of drug use. We will test multiple dimensions of impulsivity and sensation seeking as determinants of substance use in a population of non-treatment seeking substance users.