Speakers
Brady ● Camchong ● Konova ● Reissner ● Richard ● Sinha ● Tolar ● Torregrossa
Kathleen T. Brady, MD, PhD
Distinguished University Professor
Director, South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research (SCTR) Institute
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston, SC
Biography:
Kathleen Brady, M.D., Ph.D., is an experienced clinical and translational researcher and has been conducting scientific investigations and clinical work in the field of addictions and psychiatric disorders for over 30 years. Her research focuses on pharmacotherapy of substance use disorders, comorbidity of psychiatric disorders and addictions (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder), gender differences and women’s issues in addictions, and the neurobiologic connections between stress and addictions. She has received numerous federal research grants and has published over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles and co-edited 10 books. She is the principal Investigator of MUSC’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), Principal Investigator of the Southern Consortium Node of the NIDA-funded Clinical Trials Network and Director of MUSC’s Women’s Research Center. Her dedication to furthering research careers has attracted a number of junior investigators and clinicians. She has mentored over 25 individual NIH funded faculty development awards (K-awards) and is presently involved in three institutional faculty development programs (CTSA KL2; BIRCWH, NIDA K-12). She has been the Co-Director of MUSC’s NIH- funded post-doctoral fellowship program focused on translational research training in addictions for 15 years.
Presentation Title:
Gender Differences in Substance Use Disorders
Abstract:
There are important gender differences in the prevalence, course, comorbidity and neurobiology of substance use disorders (SUDs) which impact the approach to treatment. In this presentation, gender differences in the prevalence and course of SUDs will briefly reviewed. Studies conducted over the past 10 year demonstrating sex/gender differences in the neurobiology of SUDs, in particular differences in the relationship between stress and SUDs will be reviewed. Treatment implications will be discussed.
Biography:
Jazmin Camchong, Ph.D., is a cognitive neuroscientist who has conducted and published neuroimaging studies of neural progression of recovery in addiction, which highlighted the relationship between functional connectivity and treatment outcome. She is currently addressing the translational potential of previous neuroimaging findings with the development of non-drug (i.e., non-invasive brain stimulation) neuromodulation interventions. She is extending neuroimaging findings by combining cognitive training and non-invasive brain stimulation to provide new biologically-based interventions for substance use disorder. She is leading studies that investigate the effects of using transcranial direct current stimulation in combination with engaging cognitive training in participants who are currently enrolled in standard treatment programs. Dr. Camchong’s goal is to carry out effective clinical and non-invasive interventions aimed to support recovery from substance use disorder. Dr. Camchong is the co-founder of the Consortium of Addiction Research at the University of Minnesota.
Presentation Title:
Combining tDCS and cognitive training to modulate networks that support abstinence
Abstract:
Brain-based interventions are needed to address persistent relapse in alcohol use disorder (AUD). Our prior neuroimaging work showed that long-term abstinent AUD individuals have higher resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) vs short-term abstinent AUD and controls. More specifically, our latest neuroimaging study reported that low resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) within theoretically defined addiction networks during early abstinence predict subsequent relapse. We conducted a longitudinal, double-blind, randomized clinical trial, to investigate whether a non-invasive neuromodulation intervention during early abstinence (1) can modulate rsFC of theoretically defined addiction networks and (2) is associated with treatment outcomes. Methods: Short-term abstinent AUD participants (n=51, 19 women) were assigned to either active tDCS (2mA, F3 anode/F4 cathode) or sham during cognitive training twice a day for five consecutive days. To measure rsFC changes, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data was collected during rest before and after the 5-day intervention. To record treatment outcomes, rate of relapse and time to relapse data were collected during a 4-month follow-up period. Results: AUD assigned to 5 active tDCS sessions to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) paired with cognitive training showed (1) an increase in rsFC from left DLPFC to addiction networks - incentive salience and negative emotionality networks- and (2) significantly longer time to relapse vs. AUD assigned to 5 sham tDCS sessions. There were unexpected sex-dependent intervention effects on relapse rates - AUD women undergoing active tDCS showed significantly lower relapse rates vs. AUD women receiving sham. Conclusion: Findings suggest that combining tDCS and cognitive training modulate networks known to support abstinence and extend time to relapse. Future studies examining sex-dependent effects need to be conducted to further investigate the effects of this non-invasive neuromodulation intervention and establish optimal treatment parameters to guide future interventions that improve AUD treatment outcome.
Anna Konova, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry
Co-Director, Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Neuro-Psychiatry (CCNP)
Adjunct Assistant Professor, New York University Neuroscience Institute
University of Behavioral Health Care
Brain Health Institute
Rutgers University - New Brunswick
Piscataway, NJ
Biography:
Anna Konova, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Behavioral Health Care, and the Brain Health Institute at Rutgers University. She also directs (with Yael Niv at Princeton) the Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Cognitive Neuro-Psychiatry (CCNP). Prior to Rutgers, she completed her PhD with Rita Z. Goldstein at Stony Brook University and Mount Sinai, and postdoctoral work with Paul W. Glimcher at NYU. Dr. Konova uses methods from computational and decision neuroscience to investigate the behavioral and neural mechanisms and factors that impede or enhance recovery in opioid use disorder. This work combines neuroimaging, computational modeling, and cognitive paradigms to examine how motivated learning and decision making is shaped by contextual and emotional influences that give rise to maladaptive behavior characteristic of addiction. Of particular interest are behavioral and neuroimaging markers that can directly inform clinical care and have most recently approached these questions using intensive longitudinal designs in real-world clinical settings.
Presentation Title: Addiction states as dynamic changes in valuation
Abstract:
Drug addiction is a canonical disorder of value and choice. Neuroeconomics has provided a rich framework for studying addiction in both humans and other animals. However, this work has generally considered addiction as a static entity. Less emphasis has been placed on isolating what changes underlie addiction's most elusive (and perhaps most defining) feature - its stereotyped, cyclic nature at the level of the individual, characterized by alternating periods of abstinence and drug use. I will discuss work in which we aim to better understand these dynamic processes at the transition between abstinence and relapse to drug use. Understanding these addiction states as dynamic changes in valuation, we hope, can help identify when additional therapeutic intervention is needed on a timescale that is clinically useful as well as motivate the development of new decision- and valuation-based interventions for breaking the cycle of addiction.
Kathryn 'Kate' J. Reissner, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Neuroscience Center
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC
Biography:
Kathryn (Kate) Reissner, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Duke University and a PhD from the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at UC Irvine, studying synaptic plasticity in Aplysia californica. Following completion of a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Peter Kalivas at the Medical University of South Carolina, Dr. Reissner joined the faculty of UNC-CH in 2013. Research in the Reissner lab is focused on understanding the effects of drug abuse on astrocyte physiology and morphology, as well as the basic science of neuron-astrocyte communication. The Reissner lab has found that abstinence from cocaine self-administration results in progressive atrophy of nucleus accumbens astrocytes, which may contribute to long-lasting consequences of drug abuse. In addition to research, Dr. Reissner teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of brain and behavior, substance use biology, and learning and memory.
Presentation Title: Cocaine-induced microglia pruning of astrocytes contributes to seeking behavior
Abstract:
Astrocytes are a primary glial cell type which mediate a myriad of critical functions in the brain. In 2016, we published a report that rat cocaine self-administration and extinction training (2h/day) leads to reduced surface area, volume, and synaptic colocalization of nucleus accumbens astrocytes in male rats (Scofield et al., 2016). Since that time, we have observed that a similar, but more pronounced reduction in structural features and synaptic colocalization of accumbens astrocytes is observed following long-access (6h/day) self-administration and prolonged (45 days) home cage abstinence. Notably, this effect was not observed 24 h after the last self-administration session, suggesting the necessity of an abstinence period. Branching analysis performed on these astrocytes further revealed that this reduction in morphological features was associated with reduced branching complexity, but no effect on branch lengths. We accordingly hypothesized that these findings might reflect pruning of astrocytes, despite the fact thatthere is no existing evidence in the literature that astrocytes are pruned by microglia. We hence commenced an investigation to test the hypothesis that accumbens astrocytes are pruned by microglia subsequent to cocaine self-administration. We observed that fluorescently-labelled pieces of astrocytes are indeed present in identified nucleus accumbens microglia, and that the presence of astrocyte inclusions is increased after 45 days of abstinence following cocaine self-administration. This finding indicates that (1) astrocytes are pruned by microglia, and (2) that microglia pruning of astrocytes is triggered by abstinence following cocaine use. We have also found that inhibition of phagocytosis in the nucleus accumbens core reduces cocaine seeking behavior. Accordingly, we hypothesize that cocaine self-administration and abstinence trigger activation of accumbens microglia which phagocytose and prune astrocytes, resulting in the reduced structure and function of astrocytes observed across abstinence following cocaine use.
Biography:
Jocelyn Richard, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and member of the Medical Discovery Team on Addiction at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Richard received her BA in psychobiology from Occidental College, where she worked in the lab of Nancy Dess, and completed her PhD in biopsychology at the University of Michigan in Kent Berridge's laboratory. She completed postdoctoral training with Howard Fields at UCSF, and Patricia Janak at Johns Hopkins University. She joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 2018. Research in the Richard lab is focused on the neurobiological mechanisms of reward-seeking and motivation, including in models of alcohol use disorder. The lab’s current projects are aimed at determining the contributions of the ventral pallidum and associated circuitry to cue-elicited reward seeking, and aversion-resistant drinking.
Presentation Title:
Neural and behavioral factors determining the impact of alcohol exposure on compulsive alcohol seeking
Abstract:
Compulsive alcohol use is a major contributor to alcohol use disorder’s intractable and persistent nature. Models of compulsive alcohol use include “aversion-resistant” drinking, in which animals continue to consume alcohol despite its adulteration with bitter quinine. Environmental cues associated with alcohol are important drivers of compulsive intake, leading to escalation of alcohol use and difficulty maintaining abstinence. Importantly, cortico-striatal-pallidal circuitry is implicated in both aversion-resistant drinking and cue-elicited alcohol seeking. In this presentation I will discuss our work examining the impact of voluntary and involuntary intermittent alcohol exposure on neural and behavioral responses to alcohol cues and during tests of aversion-resistant drinking. We find that the effects of chronic intermittent alcohol exposure depend on several factors, including subject sex, the timing of the exposure, and the state of the animals during cue learning and testing. I will also discuss alcohol-induced changes in the encoding and molecular properties of ventral pallidal circuitry, and the potential role of these changes in aversion-resistant drinking and cue-driven compulsive alcohol seeking behavior.
Rajita Sinha, PhD - KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry
Professor in Child Study Center and of Neuroscience
Director, Yale Interdisciplinary Stress Center
Chief, Psychology Section in Psychiatry
Co-Director of Education, Yale Center for Clinical Investigation
Yale School of Medicine
New Haven, CT
Biography:
Rajita Sinha, Ph.D., is the Foundations Fund Endowed Professor in Psychiatry, and Professor of Neuroscience and of Child Study at the Yale University School of Medicine. She is Deputy Chair of Psychiatry for Psychology and Chief of the Psychology Section in Psychiatry. Her PhD was in Biological Psychology and she then retrained in Clinical Psychology and is a licensed Clinical Psychologist with expertise in mood, trauma, anxiety and addictive disorders. She is the founding director of the Yale Interdisciplinary Stress Center that focuses on understanding the sex-specific neurobiology of stress, trauma and resilient versus vulnerable coping mechanisms that promote neuropsychiatric diseases such as alcohol use disorders, substance use disorders, chronic pain conditions, PTSD and other chronic diseases. Her lab has developed specific targets of stress pathophysiology in alcohol use disorder and in other substance use disorders and she is testing novel treatments to address these processes to prevent addiction relapse risk. Her research has been supported by a series of NIH funded independent and large Program/Center research projects continuously for over 25 years and she has published over 330 scientific peer reviewed publications in these areas. She has an H-Index of 99 on Google Scholar and she has been cited over 35,000 times. She currently serves on the National Scientific Advisory Council of NIDA and is on the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Expert Scientific Panel for the NIH Common Fund’s Science of Behavior Change program. She has also previously served as a member of the NIH/NIAAA Scientific Advisory Council. She has presented at numerous national and international conferences, and her work is widely cited. She has received a number of awards for her work, including the recent Research Society on Alcoholism’s Distinguished Researcher Award in 2020, and also the James Tharp Award from the American Society of Addiction Medicine. She has been featured as an expert on stress and trauma and its effects on memory, cognition, emotion and health behaviors for numerous news outlets, including the Dr. Oz Show, NBC Nightly News, CNN Health, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. The Yale Stress Center and Dr Sinha were also featured in the HBO Documentary entitled “One Nation Under Stress” hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. She conducts workshops, lectures and retreats on stress management, self-care for the stressed professional and for senior executives, for the military and other community groups, and on ways to reduce stress to enrich and enhance work, family and personal growth and development.
Presentation Title:
Stress-related Motivation Neurocircuits and Addiction Risk and Relapse Outcomes
Abstract:
Stress and trauma have long been known to increase addiction risk and relapse. How does this happen? What are the critical neural circuits that promote and sensitize stress-related reward motivation/ This presentation will focus on specific stress and chronic drug related adaptations in brain and peripheral circuits that impact motivation and are critical for adaptive resilient coping and self-control. The effects of alcohol and drug use and misuse on stress motivational neural circuitry, drug craving and related clinical outcomes will be discussed. Heterogeneity and individual differences in the adaptations and their impact will also be discussed with a specific focus on treatment and preventive intervention development. Finally, pharmacological and behavioral intervention results will be presented that show rescue of neural and endocrine alterations in stress and chronic drug- related disrupted motivation, that in turn, improve adaptive self control and coping and reduce drug craving and addiction relapse risk.
Mary Torregrossa, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry
Center for Neuroscience and Brain Institute
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Biography:
Mary Torregrossa, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and faculty in the Center for Neuroscience and Brain Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to establishing her lab at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Torregrossa received postdoctoral training in addiction neuroscience at Yale University and the Medical University of South Carolina, and received her Ph.D. in neuroscience at the University of Michigan in 2005. Dr. Torregrossa’s research investigates various aspects of substance use disorders (SUDs), including how environmental factors in adolescence may increase risk for developing SUDs, neural mechanisms leading to the development of compulsive drug use, and identifying novel approaches to prevent relapse. Dr. Torregrossa has a particular interest in understanding how learning and memory systems are altered by drugs of abuse and the neural substrates by which drug-associated memories drive craving and relapse. Dr. Torregrossa is a project leader in the NIDA Center for Adolescent, Reward, Rhythms, and Sleep and a founding member of the Bridging Connections in Addiction Research program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Presentation Title:
Pathological Learning and Memory as a Core Feature of Substance Use Disorders and a Path Towards Novel Treatment
Abstract:
Relapse is one of the biggest obstacles to successful treatment of any addictive disorder, and there are virtually no effective treatments for relapse prevention. One reason why relapse has been notoriously difficult to prevent is because it is often driven by exposure to cues in the environment that are associated with prior drug use. These drug-cue associative memories do not go away during abstinence and are not affected by currently available medications. Moreover, it has been hypothesized that drug-associated memories are often pathologically strong due to the influence of the drug during memory formation. Thus, drug memories become more salient than non-drug memories, which leads to a long-lasting ability to induce craving and relapse, even after extensive abstinence. Thus, in this presentation, I will discuss our research aimed at understanding how maladaptive memories associated with drugs of abuse are formed and mechanisms by which they may be weakened to help individuals maintain abstinence. I will discuss our studies using cocaine self-administration in rats in combination with electrophysiological, optogenetic, and in vivo recording techniques to determine the synaptic and neural circuit mechanisms underlying cocaine memory formation and memory weakening via the process of extinction learning. I will highlight targets we have identified that are capable of weakening cocaine memories and reducing relapse-like behavior and our progress toward translating these findings to improve the treatment of substance use disorders.