The current renewal application for the Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation (CDART) consists of a core and four projects that are linked around the central theme that individual differences in personality are important predictors of drug abuse vulnerability during adolescence and young adulthood. Previous work in our center and other laboratories has identified sensation seeking as a critical personality construct associated strongly with drug use, especially use of illicit drugs. In the current proposal, sensationseeking will be divided into two separate constructs, namely, reward seeking and inhibition, both of which are thought to be associatedwith drug use. In Project 1 (Bardo, PI), a laboratory rat model will be used to determine if individual differences in reward seeking and inhibition are associated with stimulant drug self-administration and mesocorticolimbic cellular processes. In Project 2 (Kelly, PI), human volunteers will be used to assess if individual differences in reward seeking and inhibition are associated with differences in drug self- administration and neural function as measured by fMRI and EEC. In Project 3 (Lynam, PI), a cohort of students transitioning from high school to college will be used to determine if individual differences in reward seeking and inhibition are associated with the initiation, escalation and/or cessation of drug use in a longitudinal design. In Project 4 (Zimmerman, PI), students will be used in experimental reserch designed to evaluate if individuals who vary in reward seeking and inhibition show a differential response to televised anti-drug public service announcements. There are three specific aims in the Core: one scientific, one organizational, and one that involves continuing and expanding leadership in translating the prevention science and drug abuse research communities. In relation to the four projects, some key functions of the Core are to: (1) provide thematic scientific integration of the different projects around the constructs of reward seeking and inhibition;(2) create synergy across the four proposed projects and other ongoing projects on campus;(3) facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration among basic and prevention sciences using both neurobehavioral and psychosocial levels of analysis;and (4) oversee the long-range goal of translating our basic research into practice by designing more effective anti-drug public service announements that target at-risk young adults.
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