Study protocol of a pilot randomized controlled trial of transcranial direct current stimulation paired with reappraisal training for treatment of cannabis use disorder.

Introduction: As legalization of cannabis products continues, cannabis use becomes more prevalent, and concerns regarding cannabis use disorder (CUD) rise, improving CUD treatment has become increasingly important. Techniques used to regulate emotions, such as cognitive reappraisal, may help manage cravings for cannabis in individuals with CUD. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a noninvasive brain stimulation technique, may improve regulation of emotions and reduce substance use.

Sex Moderates Relationships Between Alcohol Use Disorder, Brain Structure, and Perceived Emotional Support in Young Adults.

Objectives: Social support is associated with myriad health benefits, including recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD). Understanding its neural features may aid in intervention development. However, most neuroimaging studies investigating social support do not consider potential neuroanatomical differences related to sex and AUD, even though both factors have been related to social support.

A Narrative Review of Nicotine and Alcohol Addiction Recovery Content on TikTok.

Objectives: Adolescent substance use remains a public health concern, and social media platforms may serve as potential intervention targets. The objective of this review is to characterize studies on anti-substance use and/or pro-recovery content on the TikTok social media platform.

Methods: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for articles using search strings related to TikTok and substance use.

Substantiating policy recommendations for reducing gambling-related harms with perspectives from individuals with lived experience.

Purpose Of Review: Changes in gambling regulation have been linked to public health concerns, with system- and population-level approaches suggested to prevent and reduce gambling-related harms in societies. This review utilizes recent qualitative studies on individuals with lived experience of gambling-related harms to substantiate and inform refinement of current policy-level recommendations.

Recent Findings: Recent policy recommendations are well poised to address issues faced by individuals with lived experience of gambling-related harms, as reflected in several recent qualitative studies.

Structural brain changes associated with cocaine use and digital cognitive behavioral therapy in cocaine use disorder treatment.

Background: Few studies have investigated changes in brain structure and function associated with recovery from cocaine use disorder (CUD), and fewer still have identified brain changes associated with specific CUD treatments, which could inform treatment development and optimization.

Methods: In this longitudinal study, T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 41 methadone-maintained individuals with CUD (15 women) at the beginning of and after 12 weeks of outpatient treatment. As part of a larger randomized controlled trial, these participants were randomly assigned to receive (or not) computer-based training for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT4CBT), and galantamine (or placebo).

Smartphone Apps for Problem Gambling: A Review of Content and Quality.

Purpose Of Review: Problem gambling can have profound consequences for affected individuals, yet only a small proportion of people with problem gambling seek treatment. Mobile phone applications (apps) may provide an effective and scalable therapeutic option. The purpose of this study was to evaluate publicly available mobile apps aimed at improving problematic gambling behavior.

Neural correlates of altered emotional responsivity to infant stimuli in mothers who use substances.

Mothers who use substances during pregnancy and postpartum may have altered maternal behavior towards their infants, which can have negative consequences on infant social-emotional development. Since maternal substance use has been associated with difficulties in recognizing and responding to infant emotional expressions, investigating mothers' subjective responses to emotional infant stimuli may provide insight into the neural and psychological processes underlying these differences in maternal behavior. In this study, 39 mothers who used substances during the perinatal period and 42 mothers who did not underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing infant faces and hearing infant cries.

A non-randomized pilot study protocol of a novel social support intervention for individuals in early recovery from hazardous alcohol use.

Introduction: Connecting individuals to recovery support services such as recovery community centers and mutual help organizations can be crucial for sustaining recovery from addiction. However, there may be barriers to engagement with recovery support services on individual (e.g.

An incentive circuit for memory dynamics in the mushroom body of .

Insects adapt their response to stimuli, such as odours, according to their pairing with positive or negative reinforcements, such as sugar or shock. Recent electrophysiological and imaging findings in allow detailed examination of the neural mechanisms supporting the acquisition, forgetting, and assimilation of memories. We propose that this data can be explained by the combination of a dopaminergic plasticity rule that supports a variety of synaptic strength change phenomena, and a circuit structure (derived from neuroanatomy) between dopaminergic and output neurons that creates different roles for specific neurons.

A neuronal ensemble encoding adaptive choice during sensory conflict in Drosophila.

Feeding decisions are fundamental to survival, and decision making is often disrupted in disease. Here, we show that neural activity in a small population of neurons projecting to the fan-shaped body higher-order central brain region of Drosophila represents food choice during sensory conflict. We found that food deprived flies made tradeoffs between appetitive and aversive values of food.

Dopaminergic mechanism underlying reward-encoding of punishment omission during reversal learning in Drosophila.

Animals form and update learned associations between otherwise neutral sensory cues and aversive outcomes (i.e., punishment) to predict and avoid danger in changing environments.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of brightness coding in human visual cortex revealed by the temporal context effect.

Human visual perception is modulated by both temporal and spatial contexts. One type of modulation is apparent in the temporal context effect (TCE): In the presence of a constant luminance patch (a long flash), the perceived brightness of a short flash increases monotonically with onset asynchrony. The aim of the current study was to delineate the neural correlates of this illusory effect, particularly focusing on its dynamic neural representation among visual cortical areas.

Limited Cognitive Resources Explain a Trade-Off between Perceptual and Metacognitive Vigilance.

Unlabelled: Why do experimenters give subjects short breaks in long behavioral experiments? Whereas previous studies suggest it is difficult to maintain attention and vigilance over long periods of time, it is unclear precisely what mechanisms benefit from rest after short experimental blocks. Here, we evaluate decline in both perceptual performance and metacognitive sensitivity (i.e.

Neural Architecture of Hunger-Dependent Multisensory Decision Making in C. elegans.

Little is known about how animals integrate multiple sensory inputs in natural environments to balance avoidance of danger with approach to things of value. Furthermore, the mechanistic link between internal physiological state and threat-reward decision making remains poorly understood. Here we confronted C.

Confidence Leak in Perceptual Decision Making.

People live in a continuous environment in which the visual scene changes on a slow timescale. It has been shown that to exploit such environmental stability, the brain creates a continuity field in which objects seen seconds ago influence the perception of current objects. What is unknown is whether a similar mechanism exists at the level of metacognitive representations.

Anatomical coupling between distinct metacognitive systems for memory and visual perception.

A recent study found that, across individuals, gray matter volume in the frontal polar region was correlated with visual metacognition capacity (i.e., how well one's confidence ratings distinguish between correct and incorrect judgments).