Inhibition of activin receptor 2 signalling ameliorates metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease in western diet/L-NAME induced cardiometabolic disease.

Objective: Blockade of activin 2 receptor (ACVR2) signaling has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and aid in weight loss. Inhibition of ACVR2 signaling restores cardiac function in multiple heart failure models. However, its potential in the treatment of obesity-related cardiometabolic disease remains unknown.

Apelin regulates skeletal muscle adaptation to exercise in a high-intensity interval training model.

Plasma apelin levels are reduced in aging and muscle wasting conditions. We aimed to investigate the significance of apelin signaling in cardiac and skeletal muscle responses to physiological stress. Apelin knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice were subjected to high-intensity interval training (HIIT) by treadmill running.

Longitudinal stability of reward and relief drinking phenotypes in community and treatment-seeking individuals who engage in heavy drinking.

Background: Precision medicine approaches aim to improve treatment outcomes by identifying which treatments work best for specific individual phenotypes. In the treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD), precision medicine approaches have been proposed based on phenotypes characterized by individuals who drink primarily to enhance rewarding experiences (i.e.

Effects of lexical frequency on the post-exposure magnitude of recalibration in lexically guided perceptual learning: An explorative analysis.

Listeners use lexical information to guide the mapping between acoustic signals and representations of speech sound. This process is known as perceptual learning and results in recalibration of phonetic categories. The current work examines the effect of lexical frequency of exposure words on the magnitude of recalibration.

Opioid receptor antagonism and neural response to monetary rewards: Pilot studies in light and heavy alcohol users.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a prevalent condition associated with high degree of comorbidity and mortality. Among the few approved pharmacotherapies for AUD, two involve opioid receptor antagonism. Naltrexone and nalmefene are thought to act via opioid receptor blockage to reduce neural response to alcohol and drug-associated cues and consumption, but there have been limited efforts to characterize these effects in humans.

Decreased levels of discomfort in repeatedly handled mice during experimental procedures, assessed by facial expressions.

Mice are the most commonly used laboratory animal, yet there are limited studies which investigate the effects of repeated handling on their welfare and scientific outcomes. Furthermore, simple methods to evaluate distress in mice are lacking, and specialized behavioral or biochemical tests are often required. Here, two groups of CD1 mice were exposed to either traditional laboratory handling methods or a training protocol with cup lifting for 3 and 5 weeks.

A clinical science guide for reviewing the cross-cultural rigor of assessments in an alcohol training clinic.

A standard component of service delivery in alcohol treatment clinics is evidence-based assessment (EBA). Although EBA is essential for selecting appropriate treatment modalities for alcohol use and associated problems, there are limitations in existing EBAs concerning evidence of cultural equivalence and utility among individuals seeking alcohol treatment. However, training in EBA, addictions, and clinical applications with diverse populations all are gaps in clinical training in doctoral programs in clinical psychology.

Individual and Community Social Determinants of Health and Recovery from Alcohol Use Disorder Three Years following Treatment.

Prior research on recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD) has often focused on individual-level factors that promote recovery. Given systemic health inequities, it is also important to study community-level social determinants of health (SDOH) that may promote recovery from AUD. This study extended prior work examining individual profiles of recovery from AUD to assess how individual and community SDOH at the time of treatment entry were associated with recovery from AUD three years after treatment.

Within-AUD outpatient treatment heavy drinking transitions and associations with long-term outcomes.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine whether changes in heavy drinking occurring within alcohol treatment predict long-term functioning.

Method: Latent profile analyses were conducted using data from Project MATCH and COMBINE. Observed changes in heavy and nonheavy drinking within consecutive 2-week periods over the respective treatment durations were characterized for each participant and were used to identify latent profiles.

The Role of Affect in Psychosocial Treatments for Substance Use Disorders.

Purpose Of Review: This paper provides a narrative review of studies published over the past five years that have examined the role of affect, including both affective symptoms and affective disorders, in psychosocial treatments for substance use disorder.

Recent Findings: A growing body of literature suggests that affective symptoms and affective disorders may moderate substance use disorder treatment efficacy, mediate the effects of treatment on substance use outcomes, and may be directly changed by substance use disorder treatment.

Summary: Substance use disorders and affective disorders commonly co-occur, and both affect and affective disorders are associated with substance use disorder treatment outcomes.

Validity and measurement invariance of the Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment incentive salience domain among treatment-seekers with alcohol use disorder.

Incentive salience, or the attribution of motivational value to stimuli, is a biopsychological process that is disrupted in alcohol use disorder (AUD). The Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment (ANA) is a framework to characterize heterogeneity in addiction and establish a common assessment battery for research and clinical use. The ANA framework hypothesizes three constructs that correspond to processes in the etiology, course, and treatment of addiction: incentive salience, negative emotionality, and executive function.

Patterns of transitions between relapse to and remission from heavy drinking over the first year after outpatient alcohol treatment and their relation to long-term outcomes.

Objectives: Studying clinical course after alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment is central to understanding longer-term recovery. This study's two main objectives were to (a) replicate a recent study that identified heterogeneity in patterns of remission from/relapse to heavy drinking during the first year after outpatient treatment in an independent data set and (b) extend these recent findings by testing associations between patterns of remission/relapse and long-term alcohol-related and functioning outcomes.

Method: Latent profile analyses were conducted using data from Project MATCH (N = 952; M age = 38.

Can Alcohol Use Disorder Recovery Include Some Heavy Drinking? A Replication and Extension up to 9 Years Following Treatment.

Background: Recent research indicates some individuals who engage in heavy drinking following treatment for alcohol use disorder fare as well as those who abstain with respect to psychosocial functioning, employment, life satisfaction, and mental health. The current study evaluated whether these findings replicated in an independent sample and examined associations between recovery profiles and functioning up to 6 years later.

Methods: Data were from the 3-year and 7- to 9-year follow-ups of subsamples initially recruited for the COMBINE study (3-year follow-up: n = 694; 30.

Systemic blockade of ACVR2B ligands attenuates muscle wasting in ischemic heart failure without compromising cardiac function.

Signaling through activin receptors regulates skeletal muscle mass and activin receptor 2B (ACVR2B) ligands are also suggested to participate in myocardial infarction (MI) pathology in the heart. In this study, we determined the effect of systemic blockade of ACVR2B ligands on cardiac function in experimental MI, and defined its efficacy to revert muscle wasting in ischemic heart failure (HF). Mice were treated with soluble ACVR2B decoy receptor (ACVR2B-Fc) to study its effect on post-MI cardiac remodeling and on later HF.

miR-1468-3p Promotes Aging-Related Cardiac Fibrosis.

Non-coding microRNAs (miRNAs) are powerful regulators of gene expression and critically involved in cardiovascular pathophysiology. The aim of the current study was to identify miRNAs regulating cardiac fibrosis. Cardiac samples of age-matched control subjects and sudden cardiac death (SCD) victims with primary myocardial fibrosis (PMF) were subjected to miRNA profiling.

The relationship between delay discounting and alcohol dependence in individuals with and without comorbid psychopathology.

Rationale: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been associated with greater discounting of delayed monetary rewards, but it is unclear whether this association is primarily related to alcohol consumption or is secondary to the presence of psychiatric comorbidities. It is also unclear if steeper rates of discounting are associated with greater AUD severity.

Objective: We sought to determine whether the presence of comorbid psychiatric disorders affected the relationship between AUD and delay discounting.