Publications by authors named "Sophie YorkWilliams"

Background And Objectives: Emotional eating (EE), or eating in response to negative emotions or stress, can be understood as a manifestation of difficulties regulating emotions among individuals with eating disorders. To date, many virtual reality treatments for eating disorders have focused on body image or exposure methods and have not exclusively targeted EE. There has been a call made by experts in the field for a "new generation" of virtual reality interventions, capable of utilizing virtual reality's potential more fully.

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Insomnia is highly prevalent among military veterans but access to cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is limited. Thus, this study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of Insomnia Coach, a CBT-I-based, free, self-management mobile app. Fifty U.

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Background: An innovative naturalistic at-home administration procedure was used to investigate sex differences in subjective drug effects and verbal memory errors after ad libitum use of high potency state legal market Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentrate.

Methods: Regular concentrate users were randomly assigned to ad libitum administration of one of two cannabis concentrate products (70 % or 90 % THC) that they purchased from a dispensary. 65 participants (N = 34 men, N = 31 women) were assessed in a mobile pharmacology lab before, immediately after, and 1 -h after ad libitum concentrate use.

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The ratio of ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to cannabidiol (CBD) varies widely across cannabis strains. CBD has opposite effects to THC on a variety of cognitive functions, including acute THC-induced memory impairments. However, additional data are needed, especially under naturalistic conditions with higher potency forms of cannabis, commonly available in legal markets.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to find biomarkers for cognitive impairment in Parkinson's Disease using resting state-fMRI and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) protein analysis.
  • Researchers analyzed data from 50 PD patients with varying cognitive statuses and found that certain brain connectivity patterns and CSF protein levels were linked to cognitive impairments.
  • Their results suggest that hippocampal connectivity plays a key role in various cognitive functions in PD, highlighting its importance for clinical applications in diagnosing and understanding cognitive decline.
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Cannabis use is increasing among older adults. We examined whether cannabis use impacted results of an intervention to increase physical activity in sedentary adults aged 60 and over. We measured differences in body mass index (BMI), exercise behavior, and cardiovascular fitness between older adult cannabis users (N = 28) and nonusers (N = 136) participating in an exercise intervention trial.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the effects of high-THC cannabis products in a legal market, a subject not extensively explored due to previous federal restrictions on cannabis research.
  • - Conducted as a cohort study with cannabis flower and concentrate users, participants were assigned to consume varying THC levels and underwent assessments measuring plasma THC levels, cognitive performance, and subjective intoxication.
  • - Results indicated that concentrate users had significantly higher levels of THC and its active metabolites compared to flower users, with analysis including data from 121 participants.
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Scientific literature examining cannabis use in the context of health behaviors, such as exercise engagement, is extremely sparse and has yielded inconsistent findings. This issue is becoming increasingly relevant as cannabis legalization continues, a situation that has been associated with increased initiation of use among adults, and increased potency of available products in legalized states. Physical activity is among the most important health behaviors, but many Americans do not meet minimum exercise recommendations for healthy living.

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Exploring associations among cannabis use, brain structure, and cognitive function in older adults offers an opportunity to observe potential harm or benefit of cannabis. This pilot study assessed structural magnetic resonance imaging in older adults who were either current cannabis users (n = 28; mean age 69.8 years, 36% female) or nonusers (n = 28; mean age 66.

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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).

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Background: Concentrated cannabis products are increasingly available and used, particularly in states with legal cannabis, but little is known about the profiles and characteristics of concentrate users. We aimed to characterize user profiles of cannabis users living in states with legal medical or recreational cannabis who reported using concentrates to those who do not use concentrates.

Methods: An anonymous online survey was advertised in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

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Background: Despite dopaminergic depletion that is severe enough to cause the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), many patients remain cognitively unimpaired. Little is known about brain mechanisms underlying such preserved cognitive abilities and their alteration by dopaminergic medications.

Objectives: We investigated brain activations underlying dopamine-related differences in cognitive function using a unique experimental design with PD patients off and on dopaminergic medications.

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The development of novel cannabis research methods that are compatible with current federal regulations is imperative to conduct studies of the effects of legal market cannabis. There is very little research on higher strength, higher Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which has become increasingly available since legalization. Research on strains containing cannabidiol (CBD), a second primary, but nonpsychotomimetic, cannabinoid, is very limited.

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Studies have identified strong associations between D2 receptor binding potential and neural responses to rewarding stimuli and substance use. Thus, D2 receptor perturbations are central to theoretical models of the pathophysiology of substance dependence, and epigenetic changes may represent one of the fundamental molecular mechanisms impacting the effects of alcohol exposure on the brain. We hypothesized that epigenetic alterations in the promoter region of the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene would be associated with cue-elicited activation of neural reward regions, as well as severity of alcohol use behavior.

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Background And Aims: Chronic alcohol use is associated with lower gray matter volume, and we reported recently that alcohol use showed negative associations with widespread gray matter (GM) volume even among young adults. The current study aimed to test the strength of association between (1) alcohol use and GM volume; (2) alcohol use and white matter (WM) integrity; (3) cannabis use and GM volume; and (4) cannabis use and WM integrity among adults and adolescents.

Design And Setting: General linear models within large pooled cross-sectional samples of adolescents and adults who had participated in studies collecting substance use and neuroimaging data in the southwestern United States.

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Obesity is a large and growing public health concern, presenting enormous economic and health costs to individuals and society. A burgeoning literature demonstrates that overweight and obese individuals display different neural processing of rewarding stimuli, including caloric substances, as compared to healthy weight individuals. However, much extant research on the neurobiology of obesity has focused on addiction models, without highlighting potentially separable neural underpinnings of caloric intake versus substance use.

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Objective: Cognitive impairments in Parkinson disease (PD) are thought to be caused in part by dopamine dysregulation. However, even when nigrostriatal dopamine neuron loss is severe enough to cause motor symptoms, many patients remain cognitively unimpaired. It is unclear what brain mechanisms allow these patients to remain cognitively unimpaired despite substantial dopamine dysregulation.

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Background: Existing pharmacological treatments for alcohol use disorder (AUD) and other substance use disorders (SUDs) have demonstrated only modest efficacy. Although the field has recently emphasized testing and developing new compounds to treat SUDs, there are numerous challenges inherent to the development of novel medications, and this is particularly true for SUDs. Thus, research to date has tended toward the "repurposing" approach, in which medications developed to treat other mental or physical conditions are tested as SUD treatments.

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Much remains unknown about non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), which have variable occurrence, progression, and severity among patients. The existing suite of neuroimaging tools has yielded insight that cannot be garnered by traditional methods such as behavioral and post-mortem assessment. They provide information on brain activity and structure that is invaluable to understanding abnormalities associated with neurodegeneration in PD.

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