Advances in human neuroimaging have expanded our ability to understand the functioning of the brain, with particular recent advances fostering our analytic capacity to examine networks between the brain’s nerve cells (i.e., neurons) and neuroconnectivity (i.e., neural networks). Relevant to the field of alcoholism, several researchers recently have applied these strategies to groups at genetic...
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Binge Drinking’s Effects on the Body
A person with alcoholism engages in risky or dangerous drinking despite experiencing serious negative physical and social consequences. Such persistence in pursuing damaging behaviors suggests that the short-term “appetitive” results of drinking (such as intoxication and losing one’s inhibitions) have greater control over the alcoholic’s behavior than do the negative consequences. From a...
The prevalence of alcohol use and the contrast between the drinking patterns of men and women vary widely across the globe. For instance, rates of current drinking ranged from 3 percent and 37 percent for women and men, respectively, in the Indian state of Karnataka to 94 percent and 97 percent for women and men in Denmark (Wilsnack et al. 2009). Overall, however, men have higher rates of alcohol...
Integrating Treatment for Co-Occurring Mental Health Conditions
Drinking Over the Lifespan: Focus on College Ages
Approximately 41 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are enrolled in a postsecondary degree-granting institution (National Center for Education Statistics 2013). As a group, college students, and particularly those at residential colleges (Presley et al. 2002), often drink heavily and experience myriad associated negative consequences. This selective review discusses the special characteristics of the...
Drinking Over the Lifespan: Focus on Early Adolescents and Youth
In describing patterns of alcohol use among early adolescents (ages 12–14) and youth (ages 15–20), there is both good news and bad news. The good news is that research findings with U.S. national epidemiology data from long-term annual surveys of high-school students, such as the Monitoring the Future surveys, have indicated historical shifts toward overall decreases in levels of alcohol use...
“Maturing Out” of Binge and Problem Drinking
Electronic Feedback in College Student Drinking Prevention and Intervention
Alcohol-Endocannabinoid Interactions: Implications for Addiction-Related Behavioral Processes
Introduction
Endogenous cannabinoids, or endocannabinoids (eCBs), are bioactive lipid molecules that modulate signaling activity of several physiological processes involved in pain, appetite, energy balance, stress/anxiety, immune signaling, and learning and memory. Although understanding of the eCB system has grown in complexity since its discovery by Raphael Mechoulam, it is now widely known...