Information Processing and Mechanisms that Underlie Drug Use and Resilience

临床医生经常遇到患者声明的不使用物质的愿望和避免触发物质使用的情况与患者在日常生活中不接受治疗时的行为之间的不匹配。在这个项目中，我们将评估线索诱导的渴望;感觉寻求和冲动;和信息处理，以更好地定义和理解物质使用障碍（SUD）和弹性的机制。 毒品线索通过许多形式的数字媒体到达，包括视频，广告，音乐和印刷品。这些刺激与大脑奖励系统相互作用并触发行为的能力在SUD中起着重要作用。了解这些数字药物线索如何与大脑奖励系统相互作用以引导注意力，对于确定线索诱导的药物触发器的作用至关重要。由于数字药物提示暴露是一个潜在的可修改的环境变量，更好地理解药物提示对注意力的影响对于制定有效的干预措施至关重要。我们将调查药物线索在患者参加SUD治疗和健康对照组的注意力偏差，同时使用自然的视觉刺激和连续监测的视觉注意力的焦点。 感觉寻求被定义为对各种各样的、新奇的、复杂的、唤起性的感觉的渴望和参与，以及为了这种体验而冒险的需要。冲动被定义为缺乏反思和计划，快速决策和行动，以及粗心大意。感觉寻求和冲动被认为会诱导大脑奖励系统的活动，并与药物使用的易感性增加有关。我们将测试多个维度的冲动性和感觉寻求的非寻求治疗的物质使用者人群中的物质使用的决定因素。

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.