The Center for Prevention Research at the University of Kentucky is distinguished by thematic integration around the construct of novelty/sensation (N/S) seeking. Over the past 12 years, we have evaluated N/S seeking behavior at a number of complementary levels of analysis and have made considerable progress in our understanding of the onset and development of drug abuse, and in applying this information to the development of more focused and effective prevention efforts. Our work has clearly benefited from the strong interdisciplinary collaboration among distinct yet complementary laboratories, both within the Center and with other ongoing projects on the University of Kentucky campus. The three specific aims of the Center Core are (1) Scientific: To generate and publish high quality prevention science that is recognized as state-of-the-art research across relevant disciplines; (2) Organizational: To provide an intellectually stimulating, creative, and productive environment in which research questions and issues are examined from a multilevel, interdisciplinary perspective; and (3) Leadership: To serve as a resource, advocate and leader for drug abuse and prevention science, in part by training the next generation of drug abuse prevention researchers. The substantive theme that consistently links scientists and research projects together in our Center is a broad and in-depth focus on N/S seeking behavior in the onset and development of drug abuse, and in applying this information for the development of more focused and effective prevention efforts. The three projects proposed in the current application continue and extend the Center?s on-going evaluations of the effects of N/S seeking on drug use and abuse. (1) Animal Laboratory: Individual Differences in Drug Response: An Animal Model (Mike Bardo, PI). This project will use an animal model to study the relationship between N/S seeking and amphetamine reward; the guiding hypothesis is that novelty, similar to stimulant drugs of abuse, activates the mesolimbic dopamine reward system. (2) Human Laboratory: Drug Abuse Liability and Sensation Seeking Status (Tom Kelly, PI). This project will expand the research team?s prior work on N/S seeking as a moderator of the relationship between drug dose and the discriminative, reinforcing and other behavioral effects and abuse liability of marijuana, nicotine, alcohol and methylphenidate. (3) Community Laboratory: Comprehensive Drug Prevention for Youth (Dick Clayton, PI). This project will continue a long-standing Center tradition of evaluations of school-based, curriculum-driven prevention programs with the evaluation of a comprehensive prevention program featuring both universal and selective high sensation value components.
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