Novel Methods to Study Substance Use in College Students

描述（由申请人提供）：与压力和负面影响相关的饮酒和吸毒（SNAD）是一种特别重要的不适应物质使用（SU）模式，会导致青少年和大学生的负面结果（例如，增加学业和人际问题，在酒精影响下驾驶，犯罪行为，以及卷入令人遗憾的性行为）。考虑到与这些结果相关的公共健康风险，该项目寻求聘请一个跨学科团队来确定促进大学生SNAD的因素。新兴研究表明，两类因素——社会学习因素和压力和情感反应的遗传变异——代表了SNAD参与的重要风险。本研究的目标是发展和完善跨学科的方法，以研究选择的候选基因变异与情绪、心理期望和生活压力的相互作用，以增强我们对大学生SNAD的理解。我们将在700名大学生的样本中同时检查社会学习和基因脆弱性在应对压力和情感相关触发因素时参与饮酒或吸毒的作用。鉴于这类研究在少数民族群体中相对缺乏，我们将在一个以非洲裔美国人（AA）学生为主的大学校园进行这项研究。该项目将整合两个先前孤立的SU行为研究线，社会学习和遗传学，以便在两个层面上分析SNAD：人际（MACRO）水平，即社会学习因素和基因如何与主要生活压力源相互作用以影响平均SU，以及个人（MICRO）水平，即社会学习因素和基因如何与日常压力源相互作用以影响日常SU。这项研究将涉及一个跨学科研究小组的合作努力，他们将研究与物质使用和依赖相关的行为的社会心理、遗传和内分泌基础。该项目是两个pi在过去两年中最近发起的合作的成果和延伸，并应用了长达一个月的每日数据采集方法和DNA收集/基因分型。我们将通过下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴活性的唾液皮质醇测量作为个体间应激反应的生物学测量来增强这些测量。在宏观和微观层面上了解社会学习和遗传风险因素对SNAD的贡献是很重要的，因为它将为预防工作提供信息，因为它可能允许早期识别问题SU的最大风险个体，包括酒精和药物使用障碍。结果还可能使特定治疗方法与个体的脆弱性相匹配。大学生酗酒和吸毒是一个重要的公共卫生问题。新兴研究表明，社会学习因素与个体遗传变异和生活压力相互作用，影响不良物质使用行为的风险。本提案旨在开发强大而新颖的方法，利用基于互联网的技术来捕获与物质使用有关的大学生生活事件和行为的日常数据，并将这些信息与有关压力反应性的基因自然变异的新兴知识相结合。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Stress- and negative-affect related drinking and drug use (SNAD) is an especially important maladaptive substance use (SU) pattern that results in negative outcomes (e.g. increased academic and interpersonal problems, driving under the influence of alcohol, delinquent activity, and getting involved in regrettable sexual situations) in adolescents and college students. Given the public health risk associated with these outcomes, this project seeks to engage an interdisciplinary team to identify the factors that promote SNAD in college students. Emergent research suggests that two classes of factors - social learning factors and genetic variation in stress and affective reactivity - represent important risks for engagement in SNAD. The goal of the proposed research is to develop and refine interdisciplinary methodologies to examine the interaction of variation in select candidate genes with mood, psychological expectancies, and life stress to enhance our understanding of college students' SNAD. We will simultaneously examine the roles of social learning and genetic vulnerabilities for engaging in drinking or drug use in response to stress- and affect-related triggers in a sample of 700 college students. In view of the relative paucity of research of this kind in minority populations, we will conduct this study at a college campus with a predominantly African American (AA) student body. This project will unite two previously isolated lines of research on SU behavior, social learning and genetics, in order to investigate SNAD at two levels of analysis: the between-person (MACRO) level, i.e., how social learning factors and genes interact with major life stressors to influence average SU, and the within-person (MICRO) level, i.e., how social learning factors and genes interact with daily stressors to influence SU on a day-to-day basis. This study will involve collaborative efforts by an inter-disciplinary team of investigators who conduct research on the psychosocial, genetic, and endocrine bases of behavior related to substance use and dependence. This project is an outgrowth and extension of recently initiated collaborations of the two PIs over the past 2 years and applies the use of robust month-long daily data capture methodologies and DNA collection/genotyping. We will augment these measures with a salivary cortisol measure of hypothalamic- pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity as a biological measure of inter-individual responses to stress. Understanding the contributions of social learning and genetic risk factors to SNAD at both macro and micro levels is important, as it will inform prevention efforts by potentially allowing early identification of individuals at greatest risk for problem SU, including alcohol and drug use disorders. Results may also make it possible to match specific treatments to individuals' vulnerabilities. Alcohol and drug use among college students is an important public health issue. Emerging research suggests that social learning factors interacting with individual genetic variation and with life stress influence the risk of maladaptive substance use behavior. This proposal seeks to develop robust and novel methodologies to use internet-based technologies to capture daily data about college student life events and behavior related to substance use, and to integrate this information with emerging knowledge about natural variation in genes related to stress reactivity.