Comparing the Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention Versus Relapse Prevention for Alcohol Use Disorder: A Randomized Control Trial.

Objective: This study compared the efficacy of mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) with relapse prevention (RP) on reducing alcohol consumption. Secondary, exploratory aims assessed moderation of treatment effects by sex and cannabis use.

Method: A total of 182 individuals (48.

Toward Precision Characterization and Treatment of Psychopathology: A Path Forward and Integrative Framework of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology and the Research Domain Criteria.

A critical mission of psychological science is to conduct research that ultimately improves the lives of individuals who experience psychopathology. One important aspect of accomplishing this mission is increasing the likelihood that treatments will work for each person. I contend that treatment prognosis can be improved by moving toward a precision-medicine model.

Best Practices for Approaching Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents major challenges for mental health care providers. In particular, providers who treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are now tasked with determining whether to initiate trauma-focused therapy during the pandemic and, if so, whether and how to adapt treatment. The purpose of this communication is to identify and organize key considerations for whether and how to deliver commonly used evidence-supported therapy protocols for trauma treatment-specifically, cognitive processing therapy (CPT) and prolonged exposure (PE) therapy-during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic for adults who currently meet the criteria for PTSD.

The impact of COVID-19 on mental health: The interactive roles of brain biotypes and human connection.

COVID-19 along with the mitigation strategies being used to address the virus pose significant threats to our individual and collective mental health. As the crisis evolves and persists, it will be increasingly important for the research community to conduct investigations that address the mental health consequences of COVID-19. The causes of mental health effects in the context of COVID-19 are multifactorial and likely include biological, behavioral, and environmental determinants.

An empirically derived method for measuring human gut microbiome alpha diversity: Demonstrated utility in predicting health-related outcomes among a human clinical sample.

The human gut microbiome has emerged as a potential key factor involved in the manifestation of physical and mental health. Despite an explosion of cross-disciplinary interest in researching the gut microbiome, there remains to be a gold-standard method for operationalizing gut microbiome alpha diversity. Given researchers' interest in examining the relationships among gut microbiome alpha diversity and health-related outcomes of interest, a way of operationalizing the microbiome that yields a numeric value, which could be used in common statistical approaches, is needed.

Stress and number of servings of fruit and vegetables consumed: Buffering effects of monetary incentives.

Diet is a key factor of human health, and additional research is needed in order to understand the psychological causes, consequences, and moderators of dietary behavior. Participants in two studies in the United States completed a 21-day intervention that involved either self-monitoring their fruit and vegetable consumption or self-monitoring combined with earning monetary incentives for behavior. Each day, participants reported their stress, affect, and consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Cannabinoids, Pain, and Opioid Use Reduction: The Importance of Distilling and Disseminating Existing Data.

The high prevalence of chronic pain conditions combined with an over-reliance on opioid prescriptions has resulted in an opioid epidemic and a desperate need for solutions. There is some debate about whether cannabis might play a role in addressing chronic pain conditions as well as the opioid epidemic. Recent surveys suggest that a large number of people are using cannabis as a treatment for pain and to reduce use of opioids, and cannabis-derived products demonstrate at least modest efficacy in the treatment of pain in randomized controlled trials.

An Overview and Proposed Research Framework for Studying Co-Occurring Mental- and Physical-Health Dysfunction.

Mental- and physical-health conditions co-occur at a rate much higher than chance. Of patients who have a mental-health condition, more than half also have a physical disease, and these cases are associated with increased human suffering and societal cost. Comorbidity research to date has focused on co-occurring mental- and physical-health disorders separately, and relatively little research has examined the co-occurrence of mental- and physical-health dysfunction.

DRD2 methylation is associated with executive control network connectivity and severity of alcohol problems among a sample of polysubstance users.

Chronic exposure to alcohol and other drugs of abuse has been associated with deleterious consequences, including functional connectivity deficits within neural networks associated with executive control. Altered functional connectivity within the executive control network (ECN) might underlie the progressive inability to control consumption of alcohol and other drugs as substance use disorders progress. Genetic and epigenetic factors have been associated with substance use disorders (SUDs).

An Examination of Behavioral and Neuronal Effects of Comorbid Traumatic Brain Injury and Alcohol Use.

Background: Chronic alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) are highly comorbid and share commonly affected neuronal substrates (i.e., prefrontal cortex, limbic system, and cerebellum).

TLR4 Methylation Moderates the Relationship Between Alcohol Use Severity and Gray Matter Loss.

Objective: Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are associated with decreased gray matter, and neuroinflammation is one mechanism through which alcohol may confer such damage, given that heavy alcohol use may promote neural damage via activation of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-mediated inflammatory signaling cascades. We previously demonstrated that TLR4 is differentially methylated in AUD compared with control subjects, and the present study aims to extend this work by examining whether TLR4 methylation moderates the relationship between alcohol use and gray matter.

Method: We examined TLR4 methylation and gray matter thickness in a large sample (N = 707; 441 males) of adults (ages 18-56) reporting a range of AUD severity (mean Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test score = 13.

An Exploratory Association Study of Alcohol Use Disorder and DNA Methylation.

Background: Epigenetic factors, including DNA methylation, play an important role in the etiology of alcohol use disorders (AUDs). Noncandidate-based methylome-wide studies leveraging multiple tissue types are needed in order to identify a set of CpG targets that reliably differentiate AUD patients from controls and strongly correlate across brain tissue and more commonly collected tissue types (e.g.

Negative and interactive effects of sex, aging, and alcohol abuse on gray matter morphometry.

Chronic alcohol use is associated with declines in gray matter (GM) volume, as is the normal aging process. Less apparent, however, is how the interaction between aging and heavy alcohol use affects changes in GM across the lifespan. There is some evidence that women are more vulnerable to the negative effects of alcohol use on GM than men.