Is Sexual Anorexia the Flip Side of Sex Addiction?
Dr. Drew Pinsky addresses the issue of sexual anorexia, or avoidance of sex and intimacy. (Source: NYT > Health)...
POSTED 03/11/2010 at 09:17 AM --
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Weeding out your significant other? The effect of marijuana on relationships
Being young involves quite a bit of exciting change. There's the end of high-school, the start of college and some measure of independence, and a whole slew of new experiences.A recent study conducted by Judith Brooks at NYU School of Medicine has revealed that one of those experiences, smoking marijuana (weed) may be associated with more relationship conflict later in life. What's amazing about this study is that the drug use here occurred earlier in life for most of the 534 participants, while the relationship trouble was assessed around their mid- to late-twenties.Could other factors explain this finding?!Now you may be thinking to yourself that there are a whole lot of other aspects of a person's life that can affect their relationship quality and their probability of smoking weed in a......
POSTED 03/11/2010 at 08:46 AM --
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Brain Mechanism May Explain Alcohol Cravings That Drive Relapse
New research provides exciting insight into the molecular mechanisms associated with addiction and relapse. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, uncovers a crucial mechanism that facilitates motivation for alcohol after extended abstinence and opens new avenues for potential therapeutic intervention. Previous work has suggested that people, places, and objects associated with alcohol use are potent triggers for eliciting relapse and that cravings for both alcohol and drugs can increase across protracted abstinence... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)...
POSTED 03/11/2010 at 06:00 AM --
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Brain Mechanism May Explain Alcohol Cravings That Drive Relapse
New research provides exciting insight into the molecular mechanisms associated with addiction and relapse. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, uncovers a crucial mechanism that facilitates motivation for alcohol after extended abstinence and opens new avenues for potential therapeutic intervention... (Source: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News From Medical News Today)...
POSTED 03/11/2010 at 06:00 AM --
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Women Who Drink Moderately Appear To Gain Less Weight Than Non-Drinkers
Normal-weight women who drink a light to moderate amount of alcohol appear to gain less weight and have a lower risk of becoming overweight and obese than non-drinkers, according to a report in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. More than half of American adults drink alcoholic beverages, according to background information in the article... (Source: Women's Health / OBGYN News From Medical News Today)...
POSTED 03/11/2010 at 04:00 AM --
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Report Reveals Drug Diversion Success - University Of Queensland, Australia
Queensland drug-users experience significant positive outcomes from drug intervention, according to a UQ study in which almost half of the participants reduced drug use following diversionary tactics. Undertaken by School of Population Health's Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre (QADREC) in 2009, the study and recently released report examines the characteristics of those people who entered drug diversion, their health outcomes and drug-consumption patterns, and the outcomes of diversion... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)...
POSTED 03/11/2010 at 03:00 AM --
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Report Reveals Drug Diversion Success - University Of Queensland, Australia
Queensland drug-users experience significant positive outcomes from drug intervention, according to a UQ study in which almost half of the participants reduced drug use following diversionary tactics... (Source: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News From Medical News Today)...
POSTED 03/11/2010 at 03:00 AM --
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What are the policy lessons of National Alcohol Prohibition in the United States, 1920–1933?
National alcohol prohibition in the United States between 1920 and 1933 is believed widely to have been a misguided and failed social experiment that made alcohol problems worse by encouraging drinkers to switch to spirits and created a large black market for alcohol supplied by organized crime. The standard view of alcohol prohibition provides policy lessons that are invoked routinely in policy debates about alcohol and other drugs. The alcohol industry invokes it routinely when resisting proposals to reduce the availability of alcohol, increase its price or regulate alcohol advertising and promotion. Advocates of cannabis law reform invoke it frequently in support of their cause. This paper aims: (i) to provide an account of alcohol prohibition that is more accurate than the standard acc......
POSTED 03/10/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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U.N. Official Addresses Increasing Drug Addiction In Developing Countries
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on Monday warned of an impending "health disaster facing developing countries if wealthy nations fail to control drugs," Agence France-Presse reports. During a speech delivered in Vienna, UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa pointed to "increasing use of heroin in East Africa, cocaine in West Africa, and synthetic drugs in the Middle East and South East Asia as warning signs" of a growing drug problem in impoverished nations (3/8)... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)...
POSTED 03/10/2010 at 05:00 AM --
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U.N. Official Addresses Increasing Drug Addiction In Developing Countries
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on Monday warned of an impending "health disaster facing developing countries if wealthy nations fail to control drugs," Agence France-Presse reports... (Source: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News From Medical News Today)...
POSTED 03/10/2010 at 05:00 AM --
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Over 130,000 cases of diabetes now linked to soda consumption, HFCS
(NaturalNews) For years, advocates of natural health have been hammering away at the message that soda causes diabetes and obesity. The soda industry, meanwhile, has remained in denial mode, mirroring the ridiculous position of the tobacco industry that "nicotine is not addictive." Soda doesn't cause diabetes, the industry claims, and it's perfectly safe to consume in essentially unlimited quantities.The Corn Refiners Association has joined the denial with its own spin campaign that seeks to convince people High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is totally natural and completely harmless. HFCS is, of course, the primary sweetener used in sodas and soft drinks.Now comes new research presented at the American Heart Association's Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention annual conference i......
POSTED 03/10/2010 at 01:00 AM --
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Brain mechanism may explain alcohol cravings that drive relapse
(Cell Press) New research provides exciting insight into the molecular mechanisms associated with addiction and relapse. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, uncovers a crucial mechanism that facilitates motivation for alcohol after extended abstinence and opens new avenues for potential therapeutic intervention. (Source: EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science)...
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 11:00 PM --
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White Matter Integrity is Associated with Treatment Outcome Measures in Cocaine Dependence
Authors: Jiansong Xu, Elise E DeVito, Patrick D Worhunsky, Kathleen M Carroll, Bruce J Rounsaville
& Marc N Potenza
Keywords: Addiction & Substance Abuse; Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences; Biological Psychiatry; Imaging; Clinical or Preclinical; Diffusion tensor imaging; Behavioral therapy (Source: Neuropsychopharmacology)...
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Nicotine acts in the anterior cingulate, but not dorsal or ventral hippocampus, to reverse ethanol-induced learning impairments in the plus-maze discriminative avoidance task
The current study examines the role of the dorsal and ventral hippocampus, and anterior cingulate in the interactive effects of ethanol and nicotine on learning, anxiety and locomotion in the plus-maze discriminative avoidance task, which allows dissociation of drug effects on each behaviour. At training, time spent in each of the arms of the elevated plus-maze was recorded for 5 minutes. Each time that the mouse entered the aversive enclosed arm, a light and white noise were turned on. At testing, no cues were turned on and time spent in each arm was recorded for 3 minutes. The effects of systemic ethanol (1.0 or 1.4 g/kg) and nicotine (0.35 µg/0.50 µl/side) infused into the anterior cingulate, dorsal and ventral hippocampus were examined, as were the interactive effects of systemic eth......
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Haloperidol modifies instrumental aspects of slot machine gambling in pathological gamblers and healthy controls
This study investigated the effects of the preferential D2 antagonist, haloperidol (3 mg) on reward-related betting behavior in 20 subjects with pathological gambling (PG) and 18 healthy Controls. Hierarchical regression assessed the prospective relationship between Payoff and Bet Size on consecutive trials, along with potential moderating effects of Cumulative Winnings and Phase of game (early/late) under drug and placebo. Payoff predicted Bet Size on the next trial regardless of other factors, consistent with an instrumental view of slot machine gambling. Under placebo, this correlation varied as a function of Winnings and Phase in PG subjects but was strong and invariant in Controls. Under haloperidol, the Payoff[ndash]Bet Size correlation in PG subjects resembled the invariant pattern ......
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Severity of dependence modulates smokers' neuronal cue reactivity and cigarette craving elicited by tobacco advertisement
Smoking-related cues elicit craving and mesocorticolimbic brain activation in smokers. Severity of nicotine dependence seems to moderate cue reactivity, but the direction and mechanisms of its influence remains unclear. Although tobacco control policies demand a ban on tobacco advertising, cue reactivity studies in smokers so far have not employed tobacco advertisement as experimental stimuli. We investigated whether tobacco advertisement elicits cue reactivity at a behavioral (subjective craving) and a neural level (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) in 22 smokers and 21 never-smokers. Moreover, we studied the influence of severity of dependence on cue reactivity. In smokers, tobacco advertisement elicited substantially more craving than control advertisement whereas never-smoke......
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Heroin reduces startle and cortisol response in opioid-maintained heroin-dependent patients
Heroin dependence (HD) is a chronic relapsing brain disorder characterized by a compulsion to seek and use heroin. Stress is seen as a key factor for heroin use. Methadone maintenance and the prescription of pharmaceutical heroin [diacetylmorphine (DAM)] are established treatments for HD in several countries. The present study examined whether DAM-maintained patients and methadone-maintained patients differ from healthy controls in startle reflex and cortisol levels. Fifty-seven participants, 19 of each group matched for age, sex and smoking status, completed a startle session which included the presentation of 24 bursts of white noise while eye-blink responses to startling noises were recorded. Salivary cortisol was collected three times after awakening, before, during and after the start......
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Second-order schedules of nicotine reinforcement in rats: effect of AM251
The endocannabinoid system has been implicated in the motivational effects of nicotine and nicotine-associated stimuli but the neural circuitry underlying tobacco addiction is not fully characterised. The present study aimed to establish a second-order schedule of nicotine reinforcement to compare the role of the endocannabinoid system in nicotine- and cue-maintained responding. The male rats were successfully trained to respond on a second-order schedule [FR5 (FR5: S) or FI 10' (FR3: S)] under which presentation of the CS (brief light oscillation) was intermittently reinforced by nicotine (0.03 mg/kg/infusion). The relative contribution of nicotine and the CS towards responding was then compared. Nicotine and the CS were only able to independently maintain responding to similar level unde......
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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A second-order schedule of food reinforcement in rats to examine the role of CB1 receptors in the reinforcement-enhancing effects of nicotine
This study compared the effect of acute and chronic non-contingent nicotine administration on responding for an unconditioned reinforcing stimulus (UCS) and a visual conditioned stimulus (CS) and the role of CB1 receptors was examined. Male hooded Lister rats were trained on a second-order schedule [FI 15' (FR5: S)] under which presentation of the CS (5s/5Hz light oscillation) was intermittently reinforced by the UCS (food). The rats were treated with daily saline or nicotine (0.4 mg/kg, subcutaneous [s.c.]) throughout the study. The effect of the acute nicotine challenge (0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 mg/kg, s.c.) and the CB1 receptor antagonist AM251 (0.1, 0.3 and 1 mg/kg, intraperitoneal [i.p.]) on responding for the CS and/or UCS was examined. The acute nicotine challenge increased responding for ......
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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No Train, No Gain?
[Clin Psychol Sci Prac 17: 36[ndash]40, 2010] What kind of training is needed for what type of clinician to deliver what type of therapy? Beidas and Kendall's (2010) well-considered recommendations for further research into systematic strategies for training clinicians to utilize evidence-based treatments highlight the limitations of didactic training alone (without supervision, fidelity monitoring, and feedback) in conferring specific skills to clinicians. To further amplify some of the points made, we summarize findings from our recent series of trials, which involved training community-based addiction clinicians to perform evidence-based therapies in a multisite randomized clinical trial. In particular, review of tapes from the "treatment as usual" condition in that study suggests that ......
POSTED 03/09/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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