The Potential Clinical Utility of Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring Data to Estimate the Number of Alcoholic Drinks Consumed.

Objectives: Transdermal alcohol monitoring is used extensively in forensic settings to identify whether individuals have violated court-ordered mandates to abstain from drinking. Despite widespread use in that setting, comparatively few studies have explored the clinical utility of transdermal alcohol monitoring. Furthermore, of the few studies conducted, most have relied on the forensically established conservative criteria to identify whether or not a drinking episode has occurred.

Do variable rates of alcohol drinking alter the ability to use transdermal alcohol monitors to estimate peak breath alcohol and total number of drinks?

Background: Transdermal alcohol monitoring is a noninvasive method that continuously gathers transdermal alcohol concentrations (TAC) in real time; thus, its use is becoming increasingly more common in alcohol research. In previous studies, we developed models that use TAC data to estimate peak breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) and standard units consumed when the rate of consumption was tightly controlled.

Methods: Twenty-two healthy participants aged 21 to 52 who reported consuming alcohol on 1 to 4 days per week were recruited from the community.

Use of continuous transdermal alcohol monitoring during a contingency management procedure to reduce excessive alcohol use.

Background: Research on contingency management to treat excessive alcohol use is limited due to feasibility issues with monitoring adherence. This study examined the effectiveness of using transdermal alcohol monitoring as a continuous measure of alcohol use to implement financial contingencies to reduce heavy drinking.

Methods: Twenty-six male and female drinkers (from 21 to 39 years old) were recruited from the community.

Accounting for sex-related differences in the estimation of breath alcohol concentrations using transdermal alcohol monitoring.

Rationale: Previously, we reported methods to estimate peak breath alcohol concentrations (BrAC) from transdermal alcohol concentrations (TAC) under conditions where alcohol consumption was controlled to produce similar BrAC levels in both sexes.

Objective: This study characterized differences in the relationship between BrAC and TAC as a function of sex and developed a model to predict peak BrAC that accounts for known sex differences in peak BrAC.

Methods: TAC and BrAC were monitored during the consumption of a varying number of beers on different days.

How the gastroenterology nurse and provider can implement prescriptive exercise.

Exercise is Medicine is a global health initiative of the American College of Sports Medicine. Their goal is to improve the health of every patient through prescriptive exercise, which is a goal-oriented plan for any patient to increase physical exercise. The gastrointestinal nurse works in various settings with a variety of patients who have numerous chief complaints that can be helped by prescriptive exercise.

Acquisition of Rater Agreement for the Stressful Life Events Schedule.

Stress has been linked to a broad range of psychopathology including alcohol and drug dependence. Recent advances in our understanding of how stress interacts with biological systems involved in addiction has generated even greater interest in stress assessment among addiction researchers. The Stressful Life Events Schedule (SLES) capitalizes on the strengths and avoids the pitfalls of self-report checklist and interview-based stress assessments.

Advanced transfection with Lipofectamine 2000 reagent: primary neurons, siRNA, and high-throughput applications.

Lipofectamine 2000 is a cationic liposome based reagent that provides high transfection efficiency and high levels of transgene expression in a range of mammalian cell types in vitro using a simple protocol. Optimum transfection efficiency and subsequent cell viability depend on a number of experimental variables such as cell density, liposome and DNA concentrations, liposome-DNA complexing time, and the presence or absence of media components such as antibiotics and serum. The importance of these factors in Lipofectamine 2000 mediated transfection will be discussed together with some specific applications: transfection of primary neurons, high throughput transfection, and delivery of small interfering RNAs.