General Research Goals
My research lies in the intersection of substance use and substance use-related harm, decision making, and culture. As an addiction researcher, I am broadly interested in the underlying mechanisms that drive substance use, in the treatment of substance use disorder, and prevention of substance use-related harm. I believe that biased decision making underlies substance use disorders. The DSM-5 states that impaired control (or inability to direct behavior, e.g., difficulty in abstaining or cutting down, spending excessive time using, & intense craving) is one of the criteria for substance use disorder. The resulting harm (e.g., risky behaviors and continued use despite social problems) is also an indication of faulty decision making.
Framing substance use disorder as an executive control issue, I seek to answer the following questions: 1) What are predisposing or distal risk and protective factors that bias decisions towards substance use and engaging in substance use-related harmful behaviors? 2) How are decisions to continue using psychoactive substances and decisions to engage in risky behavior biased by psychoactive substances (whether when intoxicated or in the mere presence of drug-related stimuli)? 3) How can we correct these decision biases? |