Alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic: gender, parenthood, intimate partner violence, and stress.

Some preliminary work during the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that adult alcohol use increased, particularly for parents. This cross-sectional study examined the quantity and frequency of adults' alcohol use during the early stages of the pandemic. Additionally, the influences of gender, parenthood, COVID-19-related stressors and intimate partner violence (IPV) on alcohol consumption were examined.

Drinking to cope and coping strategies in Deaf/Hard of hearing college students.

Introduction: Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students experience unique stressors as a minority linguistic and cultural group that may contribute to problematic substance and alcohol use behavior. Proper coping strategies may be one protective factor to avoid reliance on alcohol as a means to reduce stress.

Methods: The current study compared the endorsement of coping strategies by DHH students and hearing individuals and their relationship to drinking to cope behavior.

The role of affective urgency and emotion regulation in vaping susceptibility.

Introduction: The prevalence of E-cigarette use is increasing along with concerns about the negative health effects of their use. Understanding the psychological constructs associated with susceptibility to beginning regular e-cigarette use may be helpful for prevention efforts. Factors such as emotion regulation (ER) and impulsivity, specifically urgency, have been significantly correlated with patterns of drug addiction in the past.

Using mobile eye-tracking to assess attention to smoking cues in a naturalized environment.

Introduction: Attentional bias to drug cues is thought to contribute to maintenance of drug-use behavior among chronic drug users. Studies assessing this bias traditionally have assessed drug cues that are explicitly presented in a laboratory setting. This study tested the use of a mobile eye-tracking procedure to assess visual attention to smoking cues by smokers and non-smokers in a more naturalized environment.

Psychophysiological assessment of emotional processing in patients with borderline personality disorder with and without comorbid substance use.

This study assessed physiological measures for the study of emotional dysregulation associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Two patient groups, the first comprised of individuals with BPD only (n = 16) and the second, individuals with BPD and co-occurring substance-use disorder (SUD; n = 35), and a group of healthy controls (n = 45) were shown standardized pictures of varying valance and arousal levels. Affective modification of startle eye-blink responses, heart rate, facial electromyography (EMG, including corrugator and zygomatic activity), and skin-conductance responses were collected during picture presentation and during a brief recovery period.

Impulsivity and risk-taking in borderline personality disorder with and without substance use disorders.

Impulsivity and risk taking propensity were assessed in participants with borderline personality disorder (BPD-only; n = 19), BPD and a current or past substance use disorder (BPD-SUD; n = 32), and a matched comparison group (MC; n = 28). Participants were administered behavioral measures of two facets of the multidimensional construct of impulsivity [GoStop, delay discounting task (DDT)], one measure of risk-taking propensity [Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART)], and two self-report measures of impulsivity (i.e.

Subjective effects of transdermal nicotine among nonsmokers.

The subjective experience of nicotine, which may be influenced by personality traits as well as environmental factors, may be important for understanding the factors associated with the initiation and maintenance of nicotine dependence. The present study examined the effects of 7 mg transdermal nicotine among a relatively large sample (n = 91; 44 women) of college-aged nonsmokers. Using a placebo controlled, double-blind, within-subjects design, nicotine's effects were examined at rest and again after participants completed a sustained attention task.

Post-trauma symptoms following indirect exposure to the September 11th terrorist attacks: the predictive role of dispositional coping.

Few data prospectively address the role of coping in the development of PTSD. In the present study, 308 undergraduates were assessed for coping prior to the 9/11 WTC attack and for PTSD symptomatology at one and three-months post-9/11. Multiple regression analyses indicated that emotion-focused coping was predictive of increased symptomatology at Month 1 and Month 3, whereas problem-focused and avoidance-focused coping were not.

Evaluation of the Alcohol Craving Questionnaire-Now factor structures: application of a cue reactivity paradigm.

The current study compared the psychometric properties and clinical/research utility of four distinct factor/subscale models of alcohol craving (three factor-derived models, and one rationally derived model) as measured by the Alcohol Craving Questionnaire-Now in social (n=52) and alcohol dependent (n=71) drinkers. All participants completed a self-report measure of alcohol abuse in addition to engaging in a structured interview and cue reactivity protocol. Participants provided self-reported craving, as well as desire to approach or avoid drinking, during a cue exposure task using separate analog scales.

Psychometric properties of the IES-R in traumatized substance dependent individuals with and without PTSD.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among treatment-seeking substance abusers. Despite the high prevalence of these co-occurring conditions, few PTSD screening tools have been evaluated for their utility in identifying PTSD in substance use disorder (SUD) populations. The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) in a sample of 124 substance dependent individuals.

Relationship between PTSD symptomatology and nicotine dependence severity in crime victims.

Smoking rates are higher and cessation rates are lower among individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to the general population, thus understanding the relationship between PTSD and nicotine dependence is important. In a sample of 213 participants with a crime-related trauma (109 with PTSD), the relationship between PTSD status, smoking status (smoker vs. non-smoker), substance abuse diagnosis (SUD), PTSD symptoms, and sex was assessed.

The effects of nicotine on the attentional modification of the acoustic startle response in nonsmokers.

Rationale And Objective: Research on nicotine and attention has mainly utilized samples of deprived smokers and tasks requiring volitional responses, raising the question of whether nicotine improves attention or simply alleviates withdrawal or improves motor speed. This study used the startle eyeblink reflex to assess nicotine effects on auditory attention in nonsmokers.

Materials And Methods: Sixty-seven healthy young adult nonsmokers completed a tone discrimination task.

Motivated attention and prepulse inhibition of startle in rats: using conditioned reinforcers as prepulses.

In humans, prepulse inhibition (PPI) of startle is greater during attended prestimuli than it is during ignored prestimuli, whereas in rats, most work has focused on passive PPI, which does not require attention. In the work described in this article, researchers developed a paradigm to assess attentional modification of PPI in rats using motivationally salient prepulses. Water-deprived rats were either conditioned to attend to a conditioned stimulus (CS; 1-s, 7-dB increase in white noise) paired with water (CS(+) group), or they received uncorrelated presentations of white noise and water (CS0 group).

Factor structure of posttraumatic stress among Western New York undergraduates following the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

The structure of posttraumatic stress is of both theoretical and clinical interest. In the present study, seven models of posttraumatic stress were compared using confirmatory factor analysis. A sample of 528 Western New York undergraduate students was assessed 1 and 3 months after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Craving and startle modification during in vivo exposure to food cues.

Rationale And Objectives: Food craving and reactivity to food cues are related to food intake. Research has shown that both startle magnitude and prepulse inhibition of startle may be useful indices of cue reactivity and drug craving. The goal of this study was to assess the utility of these paradigms for the study of food craving in food-deprived participants.

Influence of a monetary incentive upon attentional modification of short-lead prepulse inhibition and long-lead prepulse facilitation of acoustic startle.

Short-lead prepulse inhibition and long-lead prepulse facilitation of startle are greater during attended than ignored prestimuli. The present work examined whether this attentional modification is influenced by monetary incentive. Participants (43 college students) were randomly assigned to receive a small performance-based monetary incentive or were instructed to try their best.