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Neuroplasticity and Predictors of Alcohol Recovery
Recovery from alcoholism is a complex and long-term process with high relapse rates. Therefore, understanding why people relapse has been critically important to improving treatment outcomes. To that end, researchers are looking for clinical and biological markers that predict relapse after treatment and to use those risk factors to develop effective treatments to reduce relapse rates. One...
Alcohol, DNA Methylation, and Cancer
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Burden of Disease Project, alcohol accounts for approximately 3.2 percent of all deaths per year worldwide (corresponding to 1.8 million people) and is causally related to more than 60 different medical conditions (Rehm et al. 2004). Cancer formation (i.e., carcinogenesis) is one of the most significant consequences attributed to alcohol...
Resilience to Meet the Challenge of Addiction: Psychobiology and Clinical Considerations
Evidence from different disciplines suggests that acute and chronic stress–related mechanisms play an important role in both the development and the chronic, relapsing nature of addiction (Baumeister 2003; Baumeister et al. 1994; Brady and Sinha 2005). Stress is defined as the physiological and psychological process resulting from a challenge to homeostasis by any real or perceived demand on the...
“Maturing Out” of Binge and Problem Drinking
This article reviews literature aiming to explain the widespread reductions in binge and problem drinking that begin around the transition to young adulthood (i.e., “maturing out”). Whereas most existing literature on maturing out emphasizes contextual effects of transitions into adult roles and responsibilities, this article also reviews recent work demonstrating further effects of young adult...
Background for Real-Time Monitoring and Intervention Related to Alcohol Use
Prenatal Alcohol Exposure and the Developing Immune System
Most Americans are aware that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can injure the developing fetus. Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), with their developmental, cognitive, and behavioral consequences, probably are the best known dangers (Bakoyiannis et al. 2014; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] 2009). However, drinking during pregnancy also can...
Long-lasting changes in synaptic function (i.e., synaptic plasticity) have long been thought to contribute to information storage in the nervous system (Kandel et al. 2014; Lovinger 2010). Studies combining behavioral and physiological analyses offer strong evidence supporting this hypothesis (Kandel et al. 2014; Ramirez et al. 2014). On the one hand, this plasticity allows the organism to adapt...
Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Mutual Help Group Participation for Substance Use Problems
Racial/ethnic minority groups comprise a large proportion of the U.S. population and evidence a substantial need for treatment of substance use disorder (SUD). Analysis of the most recent, reliable data available—the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)1—found that the prevalence of past-year SUD among those age 12 and older was higher among some racial/ethnic minority...
Alcoholic Liver Disease: Pathogenesis and Current Management
Effects of Binge Drinking on the Developing Brain
