Prescription opioid misusers exhibit blunted parasympathetic regulation during inhibitory control challenge.

Rationale: Among opioid-treated chronic pain patients, response inhibition deficits in emotional contexts may contribute to opioid misuse.

Objectives: Using high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) to index-impaired response inhibition, we examined associations between opioid misuse and response inhibition in emotional and neutral contexts in a sample of opioid-treated chronic pain patients.

Method: Chronic pain patients taking opioid analgesics (N = 97) for ≥ 90 days completed an Emotional Go/NoGo task that presented an inhibitory control challenge in the context of neutral, opioid, negative affective, and positive affective background images while HF-HRV was computed.

The impact of sexual victimization on substance use disorder treatment completion: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

A significant proportion of individuals seeking treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs) have experienced sexual victimization, which has been shown to disrupt the efficacy of SUD treatment services. To evaluate the relationship between lifetime sexual victimization and SUD treatment completion. Relevant literature was identified through a systematic, computerized search of nine electronic databases (May 2018) and reference harvesting, yielding 15 peer-reviewed articles published between 1992 and 2017.

Mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement reduces opioid misuse risk via analgesic and positive psychological mechanisms: A randomized controlled trial.

Objective: Despite the heightened urgency of the current prescription opioid crisis, few psychotherapies have been evaluated for chronic pain patients receiving long-term opioid analgesics. Current psychological pain treatments focus primarily on ameliorating negative affective processes, yet basic science suggests that risk for opioid misuse is linked with a dearth of positive affect. Interventions that modulate positive psychological processes may produce therapeutic benefits among patients with opioid-treated chronic pain.

The relationship between substance misuse and complicated grief: A systematic review.

Complicated grief is a prolonged, bereavement-specific disorder with significant psychological and physical consequences. Although complicated grief represents a risk to individuals with substance misuse, this relationship is poorly understood. Consequently, this systematic literature review examined empirical findings regarding the relationship between substance misuse and complicated grief.

Enhancing Natural Reward Responsiveness Among Opioid Users Predicts Chronic Pain Relief: EEG Analyses From a Trial of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement.

Objective: Although opioid-treated chronic pain patients evidence blunted responsiveness to natural rewards, focusing on naturally rewarding stimuli can produce analgesia in these patients. A prior randomized controlled trial (RCT) demonstrated that a social work intervention-Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE)-enhanced natural reward processing as indicated by event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The aim of the present study was to perform a secondary data analysis on ERPs collected in this RCT to explore whether improvements in electrocortical response to natural reward predicted pain relief.

Effects of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement Versus Social Support on Negative Affective Interference During Inhibitory Control Among Opioid-Treated Chronic Pain Patients: A Pilot Mechanistic Study.

Background: Among opioid-treated chronic pain patients, deficient response inhibition in the context of emotional distress may contribute to maladaptive pain coping and prescription opioid misuse. Interventions that aim to bolster cognitive control and reduce emotional reactivity (e.g.

Mindfulness meditation in the treatment of substance use disorders and preventing future relapse: neurocognitive mechanisms and clinical implications.

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are a pervasive public health problem with deleterious consequences for individuals, families, and society. Furthermore, SUD intervention is complicated by the continuous possibility of relapse. Despite decades of research, SUD relapse rates remain high, underscoring the need for more effective treatments.

Reappraisal deficits promote craving and emotional distress among chronic pain patients at risk for prescription opioid misuse.

: A subset of chronic pain patients misuse prescription opioids as a means of regulating negative emotions. However, opioid misuse may result in deficits in emotion regulation strategies like reappraisal by virtue of the deleterious effects of chronic opioid exposure. The aim of this study was to characterize differences in reappraisal use among chronic pain patients at risk for opioid misuse and those who report taking opioids as prescribed.

Mindfulness-based treatment of addiction: current state of the field and envisioning the next wave of research.

Contemporary advances in addiction neuroscience have paralleled increasing interest in the ancient mental training practice of mindfulness meditation as a potential therapy for addiction. In the past decade, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been studied as a treatment for an array addictive behaviors, including drinking, smoking, opioid misuse, and use of illicit substances like cocaine and heroin. This article reviews current research evaluating MBIs as a treatment for addiction, with a focus on findings pertaining to clinical outcomes and biobehavioral mechanisms.

Prescription opioid misusing chronic pain patients exhibit dysregulated context-dependent associations: Investigating associative learning in addiction with the cue-primed reactivity task.

Background: Associative learning undergirds the development of addiction, such that drug-related cues serve as conditioned stimuli to elicit drug-seeking responses. Plausibly, among opioid misusing chronic pain patients, pain-related information may serve as a conditioned stimulus to magnify opioid cue-elicited autonomic and craving responses through a process of second-order conditioning.

Methods: We utilized a novel psychophysiological probe of pain-opioid conditioned associations, the Cue-Primed Reactivity (CPR) task.

Therapeutic mechanisms of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement for internet gaming disorder: Reducing craving and addictive behavior by targeting cognitive processes.

: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is characterized by signs and symptoms similar to substance use and gambling disorders, and associated with psychosocial impairments. Research suggests that maladaptive gaming-related cognitions and coping may be implicated in IGD; therefore, interventions for IGD need to target these underlying mechanisms. Mindfulness-based treatment is effective in changing maladaptive cognitive processes and increasing adaptive coping among people with addictions.

Single-Item Measures for Detecting Sleep Problems in United States Military Veterans.

Background: As many as two-thirds of post-9/11 military veterans complain of sleep problems, including insomnia-like symptoms. Left untreated, chronic sleep problems increase the risk for a range of negative outcomes, including incident mental health disorders. However, sleep problems remain overlooked in primary care settings.

Sleep, resilience, and psychological distress in United States military Veterans.

Sleep problems are prevalent among Veterans. Left untreated, such problems may elevate psychological distress and increase risk of subsequent mental health disorders. Psychological resilience may buffer against negative psychological outcomes, yet the relationship between sleep and resilience has not been studied.

Insomnia in United States military veterans: An integrated theoretical model.

Marked by difficulty falling or staying asleep and/or poor sleep leading to daytime dysfunction, insomnia contributes to functional impairment, poor health, and increased healthcare utilization when left untreated. As many as two-thirds of Iraq and Afghanistan military veterans complain of insomnia. Older veterans of prior conflicts report insomnia occurring since initial service, suggesting a chronic nature to insomnia in this population.

Substance use among bi/multiracial youth in the United States: Profiles of psychosocial risk and protection.

Background: Bi/multiracial youth face higher risk of engaging in substance use than most monoracial youth.

Objectives: This study contrasts the prevalence of substance use among bi/multiracial youth with that of youth from other racial/ethnic groups, and identifies distinct profiles of bi/multiracial youth by examining their substance use risk.

Methods: Using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (collected between 2002 and 2014), we analyze data for 9,339 bi/multiracial youth ages 12-17 living in the United States.

Polysubstance Use Among Adolescents in a Low Income, Rural Community: Latent Classes for Middle- and High-School Students.

Purpose: Rural communities are currently being impacted by a nationwide epidemic of prescription opioid misuse. Rural adolescent substance users may be at substantial risk for later addiction to these and other drugs.

Methods: This study uses Latent Class Analysis to identify subtypes of polysubstance users among a sample of 7,074 rural adolescents.

Biobehavioral Mechanisms of Mindfulness as a Treatment for Chronic Stress: An RDoC Perspective.

Mindfulness-based interventions have been heralded as promising means of alleviating chronic stress. While meta-analyses indicate that mindfulness-based interventions significantly reduce global measures of stress, how mindfulness-based interventions modulate the specific mechanisms underpinning chronic stress as operationalized by the National Institute of Mental Health research domain criteria (RDoC) of sustained threat has not yet been detailed in the literature. To address this knowledge gap, this article aims to (1) review evidence that mindfulness-based interventions ameliorate each of the 10 elements of behavioral dysregulation characterizing sustained threat via an array of mindful counter-regulatory strategies; (2) review evidence that mindfulness-based interventions modify biological domains implicated in sustained threat, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, as well as brain circuits involved in attentional function, limbic reactivity, habit behavior, and the default mode network; and (3) integrate these findings into a novel conceptual framework of mindful self-regulation in the face of stress-the Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory.

Cigarette-smoking trajectories of monoracial and biracial Blacks: Testing the intermediate hypothesis.

Research on the cigarette-smoking patterns of biracial adolescents and young adults is severely limited. In this study, we tested the intermediate biracial substance-use hypothesis, which suggests that the prevalence of substance use among biracial individuals falls intermediate to their monoracial counterparts. We examined cigarette-smoking trajectories of a de-aggregated sample of biracial Black adolescents and young adults.

Mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement for internet gaming disorder in U.S. adults: A stage I randomized controlled trial.

Empirical studies have identified increasing rates of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and associated adverse consequences. However, very few evidence-based interventions have been evaluated for IGD or problematic video gaming behaviors. This study evaluated Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) as a treatment for IGD.

Pain, hedonic regulation, and opioid misuse: Modulation of momentary experience by Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement in opioid-treated chronic pain patients.

Background: Given the risk of opioid misuse among chronic pain patients being treated with long-term opioid pharmacotherapy, non-pharmacological treatments are needed. Further, in light of hedonic deficits in this population, therapies that enhance positive affect may be useful. The purpose of this study was to examine effects of a Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) intervention on ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of pain and positive affective experience, and to determine if changes in pain, affect, and their interaction were associated with opioid misuse at post-treatment.

Enhancing Social Support Postincarceration: Results From a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objective: Over 50% of released prisoners are reincarcerated within 3 years. Social support from loved ones postincarceration significantly reduces the likelihood of reincarceration. Increasingly, intervention developers aim to implement interventions that will enhance the stability of support available.

Mindfulness treatment for substance misuse: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

High rates of relapse following substance misuse treatment highlight an urgent need for effective therapies. Although the number of empirical studies investigating effects of mindfulness treatment for substance misuse has increased dramatically in recent years, few reviews have examined findings of mindfulness studies. Thus, this systematic review examined methodological characteristics and substantive findings of studies evaluating mindfulness treatments for substance misuse published by 2015.

Deficits in autonomic indices of emotion regulation and reward processing associated with prescription opioid use and misuse.

Rationale: Prescription opioid misuse and high-dose opioid use may result in allostatic dysregulation of hedonic brain circuitry, leading to reduced emotion regulation capacity. In particular, opioid misuse may blunt the ability to experience and upregulate positive affect from natural rewards.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine associations between opioid use/misuse and autonomic indices of emotion regulation capability in a sample of chronic pain patients receiving prescription opioid pharmacotherapy.