Project description:Medication-assisted behavior treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) holds promise to enhance the efficacy of medication and of behavior therapy when administered individually. The present study examines the treatment benefit of combined outpatient naltrexone (NTX) treatment with Alcoholics Anonymous Facilitation (AAF) behavior therapy, in the context of OPRM1 genotype. The minor OPRM1 Asp40 G-allele has been associated with greater positive reinforcing effects of alcohol consumption and greater alcohol craving, suggesting that individuals carrying the OPRM1 G allele may have an improved naltrexone response. Twenty patients, including 7 G-allele carriers, received 90 days of naltrexone with medication support and dispensing sessions, and ten AAF behavior therapy sessions. During treatment and the eight-week posttreatment follow-up, an overall increase in percent days abstinent was observed for the sample as a whole, but G-allele carriers reported relatively heavier drinking relative to other subjects. These findings suggest that this enhanced medication-assisted behavior treatment is a promising therapeutic combination, and mirror other recent findings that G-allele carriers may require more intensive treatment.
Project description:BACKGROUND:As insurance coverage, funding sources and venues for drug and alcohol treatment evolve in the United States, it is important to assess how the type of treatment received may impact long-term outcomes. The current study aims were to examine effects of treatment type on alcohol consumption in the year after treatment intake and to test mediators of effects of treatment type on later alcohol use. METHODS:Longitudinal data from clients in inpatient and outpatient alcohol treatment programs in California (n = 560) were used in ordinary least squares path analysis adjusting for respondent characteristics typically associated with both treatment completion and alcohol use. The primary outcome was amount of alcohol consumed in the 12 months after treatment entry; hypothesized mediators were treatment duration and participation in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). RESULTS:Despite higher baseline problem severity and a shorter treatment duration, inpatient clients consumed less alcohol after treatment than outpatient clients (B [95% CI] = -0.95 [-1.67, -0.23]). AA involvement was a significant mediator of the relationship between treatment type and alcohol consumption, with inpatient clients being more involved in AA and also drinking less after treatment than outpatient clients; the bias-corrected bootstrap 95% confidence interval for the indirect effect (B = -0.20) was entirely below zero (-0.43 to -0.05). CONCLUSIONS:Outpatient clients may benefit from customized posttreatment recommendations to identify additional resources to assist in the recovery process during the first year after treatment.
Project description:BACKGROUND:Alcohol use disorder (AUD) constitutes a major public health problem and is associated with a substantial amount of disability and premature death worldwide. Several treatment and self-help options including Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings are available. Nevertheless, factors associated with AA affiliation in some disadvantaged groups such as justice-involved women are not well understood. The purpose of this study is to report on previously unexamined correlates of past year AA affiliation among women in pretrial jail detention. METHODS:The current study used cross-sectional data from 168 women with DSM-5 diagnosis of AUD in pretrial jail detention. The study examined factors related to women's concept of self and others (i.e., disbelief that others are trustworthy, lack of autonomy to choose who they interact with, experience of violent victimization, low investment in self-care, higher stress levels, and homelessness) as correlates of past-year AA affiliation, controlling for severity of AUD and demographic factors. RESULTS:Women who believe that others are inherently trustworthy, women who met less AUD criteria, and women who are older reported more past-year AA affiliation in both univariate and multivariate analyses. CONCLUSION:Introducing AA outreach and alternative interventions for younger, less severely addicted women might improve AUD outcomes. Moreover, designing more individualized treatment plan for women who believe others are not trust worthy might help AUD treatment engagement in this population. TRIAL REGISTRATION:NCT01970293 , 10/28/2013.
Project description:IntroductionOne of the core symptoms of alcohol use disorder (AUD) is impulsivity. The recently published study on the Impulsivity Scale 12 (IS-12) offers a promising tool to use in clinics working with clients with AUD due to its simplicity. IS-12 includes subscales related tocognitive impulsivity and behavioral impulsivity, which are related to different aspects of AUD symptomatology. The aim of the study was to adapt IS-12 to polish and test its utility in a sample of patients diagnosed with AUD.MethodsUsing a Confirmatory Factor Analysis, we compared the two-factor model of the Polish adaptation of the BIS-11 and the IS-12 on a sample of 615 patients diagnosed with AUD. Additionally, we explored the association between the IS-12's cognitive impulsivity and behavioral impulsivity subscales and depressive symptoms, AUD severity, and suicidal ideation using Structural Equation Modeling on a subsample of 450 patients with AUD.ResultsThe IS-12 demonstrated a better model fit and good reliability compared to the BIS-11. Moreover, cognitive impulsivity predicted suicidal ideation, but not AUD severity, while behavioral impulsivity predicted AUD severity, but not suicidal ideation. Both subscales of IS-12 predicted depressive symptoms.ConclusionConsistent with prior work, findings indicate that the second-order factor model of the BIS-11 had reliability issues and evidenced poor model fit. In contrast, the IS-12 demonstrated a satisfactory model fit and was predictive of clinical symptomatology. Thus, utilizing an easy tool, such as IS-12, might be beneficial for researchers and clinicians working with patients with AUD.
Project description:BackgroundDrop-out from 12-step groups is notoriously high, yet the field lacks strong models and scales for addressing this problem. We aim to determine whether the theory of planned behavior (TPB) can be applied to 12-step involvement, and to develop and validate a scale of 12-step readiness based on that theory: the Alcoholics Anonymous Intention Measure (AAIM).MethodData were from a longitudinal trial of a manual-guided 12-step facilitation intervention called Making AA Easier (MAAEZ) involving two treatment programs in California (N=508). Participants completed surveys at baseline, 7 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months. Surveys included the preliminary AAIM, a 12-step involvement measure, other readiness measures, and substance use outcomes.ResultsThe final, 17-item AAIM measured Attitude (5-item alpha's=.75-.83), Subjective Norm (4-item alpha's=.56-.81), Perceived Control (5-item alpha's=.78-.85), and Intention (3-item alpha's=.80-.95) regarding attendance at 12-step groups. Components were correlated with each other and other readiness measures as expected, supporting the AAIM's validity. Scale components predicted 31% of the variance in Intention to attend 12-step groups at 6 months and 41% of the variance in 12-step involvement at 12 months. Social factors were among the strongest predictors of 12-step involvement. Results did not support the expectancy-value formulation of the TPB, as unweighted (vs. weighted) belief items performed optimally.ConclusionsResults generally support the TPB as a model of 12-step involvement and suggest specific targets for 12-step facilitation interventions within attitude, norm, and control components. Findings also support the AAIM as a tool for identifying drop-out risks and tailoring individual interventions.
Project description:Jailed women are an underserved population with elevated rates of alcohol use disorders. Brief jail stays make delivery of case management and traditional alcohol treatment impractical yet women face significant reentry challenges with few help resources. Accounting for these challenges, linking jailed women with a twelve-step program volunteer for a one-on-one meeting has been hypothesized to provide a means of support that can transition with women after jail discharge. In-jail meetings are theoretically consistent with the common twelve-step practice of conducting twelve-step calls. The acceptability and content of a one-on-one, in-jail meeting with a twelve-step volunteer were explored using qualitative data collected through interviews with 72 women directly following their in-jail volunteer meeting. Participants found the meeting to be acceptable and to contain many useful elements, and content was in line with the standard twelve-step calls. Findings are encouraging both for the potential utility of the intervention and for dissemination of similar linkage approaches.
Project description:Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a life-threatening disease characterized by compulsive drinking, cognitive deficits, and social impairment that continue despite negative consequences, which are driven by dysfunction of cortical areas, such as the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), that normally balances decisions related to reward and risk. In this study, proteomics and machine learning analysis of post-mortem OFC brain samples collected from individuals with AUD revealed dysregulation of presynaptic (e.g., AP2A1) and mitochondrial proteins that predicted the occurrence and severity of AUD. Alcohol-sensitive OFC proteins also mapped to abnormal social behaviors and interactions. Validation using reverse genetics, we found that prefrontal Ap2a1 regulates alcohol drinking in genetically diverse mouse strains. Furthermore, we demonstrated sexual dimorphism in human OFC proteins that regulate extracellular matrix structure and signaling. Together, these findings highlight the impact of excessive alcohol consumption on the human OFC proteome and identify important cross-species cortical mechanisms underlying AUD.
Project description:Alcohol use disorder (AUD) affects transcriptomic, epigenetic and proteomic expression in several organs including the brain. Multi-omic analyses of the brain from individuals with AUD to date lack a comprehensive analysis of protein alterations in the multiple brain regions that underlie neuroadaptations occurring in AUD. We performed quantitative proteomic analysis using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis of human post-mortem tissue from brain regions that play a key role in the development and maintenance of AUD: amygdala (AMG), hippocampus (HIPP), hypothalamus (HYP), nucleus accumbens (NAc), prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventral tegmental area (VTA). Brain tissues analyzed were from individuals with AUD (n = 11) and matched controls (n = 16).
Project description:The present study utilized patient-derived “cell-line” model systems treated with anti-craving drugs that are used to treat alcohol use disorder (AUD) as “molecular probes” to help identify molecular mechanisms associated with craving and AUD treatment outcomes.
Project description:Excessive alcohol consumption is a leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Neurobiological mechanisms associated with alcohol use disorder (AUD) remain insufficiently understood. Here, we provide RNA-sequencing data generated in nucleus accumbent and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, from 114 deceased individuals: 58 AUD cases, 56 non-AUD controls. DNA methylation data on many of these same individuals is available (see GEO accession number GSE252501).