Attentional bias to alcohol-related cues: effects of menstrual cycle phase and sex differences.

Rationale: A recent study by our group found that women displayed greater attentional bias to alcohol-related cues during the late versus early follicular phase in both sober and intoxicated states, suggesting a greater risk of excessive drinking among women during this phase. Changes in attentional bias as a function of menstrual cycle phase raise questions about potential sex differences in the relative consistency by which women and men display attentional bias to alcohol over time.

Objectives: The present study tested sex differences in attentional bias to alcohol by comparing the change in women's attentional bias from early to late follicular phase to that observed in men over the same period.

Overdose Experiences Among a Sample of Women in Jail with Opioid Use Disorder.

  Previous non-fatal overdose may increase risk of overdose fatality for women reentering the community following incarceration, but pre-incarceration overdose experiences are understudied. This study describes the prevalence and correlates of non-fatal overdose prior to jail among women with opioid use disorder (OUD).  Women ( = 700) were randomly selected from eight Kentucky jails, screened for OUD, and interviewed as part of the NIDA-funded Kentucky Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) trial.

Social support networks of incarcerated women with opioid use disorder: Differences associated with jail-based substance use treatment.

Introduction: Social support is a critical factor for women's engagement with substance use treatment and recovery, particularly for women with criminal-legal system involvement. However, less is known about the social support networks of incarcerated women, particularly as a function of service engagement. Thus, this paper aims to describe the structure, composition, and function of social support networks of women with opioid use disorder (OUD) incarcerated in jails; and compare network differences between women receiving jail-based substance use treatment and non-treatment participants.

Assessing the impact of long-acting injectable compared to oral antipsychotic medications on readmission to a state psychiatric hospital.

What Is Known On The Subject: People living with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) have a higher death rate which is caused, in part, by poorer adherence to treatment as compared to those with other mental illnesses. Using long-acting injectable antipsychotic (LAI) medications can improve medication adherence and reduce hospitalizations for people living with SSD but are often underutilized.

What The Paper Adds To Existing Knowledge: As compared to oral antipsychotic medications provided to patients with SSD at discharge from a psychiatric hospitalization, being provided with an LAI antipsychotic medication may reduce subsequent rehospitalization.

Using Photovoice to Improve Engagement in Community Health Assessments Addressing Behavioral Health.

Behavioral health disorders are well-known to have close links with the social determinants of health, yet little is known about how impacted communities perceive these links. Qualitative participatory methods can not only provide insight into how communities conceptualize these relationships but also empower those with lived experience to contextualize their perspectives and formulate calls to action. This study used Photovoice as a participatory method to supplement the Clark County Health Department Community Health Assessment and determine priority facilitators and barriers contributing to the behavioral health of Clark County, KY, residents.

Maltreatment, resilience, and sexual relationship power in a sample of justice-involved women with opioid use disorder.

Justice-involved women frequently report maltreatment and intimate relationships characterized by violence and abuse throughout adulthood. The present study aimed to (a) investigate the association between victimization and sexual relationship power (SRP) among justice-involved women with opioid use disorder (OUD) and (b) explore resilience as a potential moderating factor of the association between victimization and SRP. Under the ongoing Kentucky Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) cooperative, justice-involved women (N = 700) were randomly selected from eight jails in Kentucky, screened for OUD, consented to participate, and interviewed by research staff.

"Pathways": A hope-enhancing intervention for patients undergoing treatment for advanced lung cancer.

Objective: Observational data suggest hope is associated with the quality of life and survival of people with cancer. This trial examined the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcomes of "Pathways," a hope intervention for people in treatment for advanced lung cancer.

Methods: Between 2020 and 2022, we conducted a single-arm trial of Pathways among participants who were 3-12 weeks into systemic treatment.

A dose-ranging study of the physiological and self-reported effects of repeated, rapid infusion of remifentanil in people with opioid use disorder and physical dependence on fentanyl.

Rationale: Understanding mechanisms of drug use decisions will inform the development of treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD). Decision-making experiments using neurobehavioral approaches require many trials or events of interest for statistical analysis, but the pharmacokinetics of most opioids limit dosing in humans.

Objectives: This experiment characterized the effects of repeated infusions of the ultra-short acting opioid remifentanil in people with OUD and physical opioid dependence.

Effect of menstrual cycle on rewarding properties of alcohol cues in women.

Objective: Compared with men, women are disproportionately affected by alcohol, including greater risks of behavioral impairment and relapse from abstinence-based treatments. One potential mechanism underlying this disparity is ovarian hormone fluctuations across menstrual cycle phases, particularly estradiol (E2). Preclinical and clinical studies have shown that E2 levels positively correlate with alcohol consumption, suggesting E2 modulates drinking.

Cocaine abstinence during the "critical period" of a contingency management trial predicts future abstinence in people with cocaine use disorder.

Background: Contingency Management (CM) is being piloted as a treatment for stimulant use disorder in several US states, highlighting the need for treatment optimization. One important goal of optimization is decreasing drug use during the early stages of treatment, which has predicted success in other interventions. However, this "critical period" has not been reported in CM trials.

The endowment effect and temporal discounting of drug and non-drug commodities.

Objectives: Despite a rich history of behavioral economic research on substance use there remains a need for further exploration of behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the etiology or persistence of substance use disorder. The purpose of this study was to measure the association between delay discounting and the endowment effect in people who smoke cigarettes, use cocaine, and controls, using online crowdsourcing.

Methods: Participants were categorized to a cocaine group (n = 36), cigarette group (n = 48), or control group (n = 47) based on recent reported drug use.

Use of drug purchase tasks in medications development research: orexin system regulation of cocaine and drug demand.

Commodity purchase tasks provide a useful method for evaluating behavioral economic demand in the human laboratory. Recent research has shown how responding to purchase tasks for blinded drug administration can be used to study abuse liability. This analysis uses data from a human laboratory study to highlight how similar procedures may be particularly useful for understanding momentary changes in drug valuation when screening novel interventions.

Facilitating factors and barriers for use of medications to treat opioid use disorder (MOUD) among justice-involved individuals in rural Appalachia.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to assess facilitating factors and barriers for medications to treat opioid use disorder (MOUD) initiation among justice-involved individuals in one rural Appalachian community, as well as how those factors may differ across the three types of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved medications. Qualitative interviews were conducted with rural justice-involved individuals (N = 10) with a history of opioid use in the target community. Overall, participants demonstrated knowledge of the different types of MOUD and their pharmacological properties, but limited overall health literacy around opioid use disorder and MOUD treatment.

Naltrexone-bupropion combinations do not affect cocaine self-administration in humans.

The FDA has not yet approved a pharmacotherapy for cocaine use disorder despite nearly four decades of research. This study determined the initial efficacy, safety, and tolerability of naltrexone-bupropion combinations as a putative pharmacotherapy for cocaine use disorder. Thirty-one (31) non-treatment seeking participants with cocaine use disorder completed a mixed-design human laboratory study.

drives transcriptional heterogeneity and maladaptive immunometabolic responses of astrocytes.

Apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) is the strongest risk allele associated with the development of late onset Alzheimer's disease (AD). Across the CNS, astrocytes are the predominant expressor of while also being critical mediators of neuroinflammation and cerebral metabolism. APOE4 has been consistently linked with dysfunctional inflammation and metabolic processes, yet insights into the molecular constituents driving these responses remain unclear.

Cannabis Use Disorder Treatment Preferences: A Pilot Survey in Current Users of Cannabis.

Objectives: Highly effective treatments for cannabis use disorder (CUD) are lacking, and patient preferences have not been considered during treatment development. We therefore conducted an exploratory crowdsourced survey of individuals reporting current cannabis use and a willingness to cut down or quit their cannabis use, to determine their interest in various treatment aspects.

Methods: Subjects (n = 63) were queried about their willingness to take medications as a function of type, route, and regimen and to participate in adherence monitoring.

Suvorexant maintenance enhances the reinforcing but not subjective and physiological effects of intravenous cocaine in humans.

Preclinical research has sought to understand the role of the orexin system in cocaine addiction given the connection between orexin producing cells in the lateral hypothalamus and brain limbic areas. Exogenous administration of orexin peptides increased cocaine self-administration whereas selective orexin-1 receptor antagonists reduced cocaine self-administration in non-human animals. The first clinically available orexin antagonist, suvorexant (a dual orexin-1 and orexin-2 receptor antagonist), attenuated motivation for cocaine and cocaine conditioned place preference, as well as cocaine-associated impulsive responding, in rodents.

Providing peer navigation services to women with a history of opioid misuse pre- and post-release from jail: A program description.

Background: Justice system-involved women with opioid use disorder (OUD) experience layered health risks and stigma, yet peer navigation services during reentry may support positive outcomes. This manuscript offers a program description of a women's peer navigation intervention delivered pre- and post-release from jail to remove barriers to women's access to OUD treatment, including medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD).

Methods: All data were collected as part of a NIH/NIDA-funded national cooperative, the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) project.

Effects of Trauma and Anxiety on Adherence in Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes.

Background: Psychiatric factors such as depression, anxiety, and life stressors have been shown to negatively affect diabetes self-management and A1C in children and adolescents. However, less is known about how trauma exposure and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may affect type 1 diabetes.

Objectives: To determine the rates of trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms in patients aged 7-21 years with type 1 diabetes and to examine the relationships among trauma exposure, PTSD, anxiety, depression, and diabetes self-management.

The Impact of a Nurse-Led Service on Tobacco Treatment Provision Within a Psychiatric Hospital: A Time Series Study.

Introduction: Psychiatric hospitalization is an opportunity to provide evidence-based tobacco treatment to optimize cessation efforts among people living with mental illnesses (MI). The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of nurse-driven initiatives to enhance tobacco treatment within an inpatient psychiatric setting.

Aims: We assessed the 4-year impact of implementing a nurse-led tobacco treatment service offered to 11,314 inpatients at admissions in a tobacco-free psychiatric facility in Kentucky.

A preliminary investigation of schedule parameters on cocaine abstinence in contingency management.

Contingency management (CM) interventions are the most effective psychosocial interventions for substance use disorders. However, further investigation is needed to create the most robust intervention possible. This study investigated the effects of 1) reinforcer magnitude; and 2) fixed and escalating and resetting incentives on cocaine abstinence in an outpatient trial.