This project is designed to investigate the effects of drugs of abuse on affective responses to stimuli with positive or negative emotional valence. The studies explore the hypothesis that drugs modulate responses to affective stimuli, and that these effects, in turn, influence the drugs'subjective or reinforcing effects. We will study bidirectional interactions between acute effects of stimulants, alcohol and cannabinoids on affective responses. The studies focus in particular on affective responses to stimuli with social content, to investigate the idea that drugs influence the perception and valence of social stimuli. We will assess the effects of drugs on responses to positive or negative visual images, including images with social or nonsocial content. In addition, we will investigate drug the effects of drugs in real-life positive or negative social situations. In all studies we will compare these emotional responses in men and women. This innovative approach bridges the area of neuropsychopharmacology with affective neuroscience, and if successful, will extend our understanding of the processes that lead to compulsive drug-seeking behavior.

Public Health Relevance

It is usually thought that people use and abuse drugs because the drugs produce feelings of wellbeing, but drugs also may influence behavior by making emotionally positive stimuli or events appear to be more positive, or by making negative stimuli or events less negative. We will investigate the direct effects of drugs on emotional responses, using both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli, and social and nonsocial stimuli. We will study social content because social behavior and drug rewards share some of the same brain circuits, and we will compare the drugs'effects on emotional responses in men and women because there may be sex differences in these effects.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DA002812-30
Application #
8417026
Study Section
Biobehavioral Regulation, Learning and Ethology Study Section (BRLE)
Program Officer
Wetherington, Cora Lee
Project Start
1981-01-01
Project End
2015-01-31
Budget Start
2013-02-01
Budget End
2014-01-31
Support Year
30
Fiscal Year
2013
Total Cost
$392,257
Indirect Cost
$140,810
Name
University of Chicago
Department
Psychiatry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
005421136
City
Chicago
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
60637
Doss, Manoj K; Weafer, Jessica; Ruiz, Nicholas A et al. (2018) Alcohol and pharmacologically similar sedatives impair encoding and facilitate consolidation of both recollection and familiarity in episodic memory. Cogn Neurosci 9:89-99
de Wit, Harriet; Epstein, David H; Preston, Kenzie L (2018) Does human language limit translatability of clinical and preclinical addiction research? Neuropsychopharmacology 43:1985-1988
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de Wit, Harriet; Sayette, Michael (2018) Considering the context: social factors in responses to drugs in humans. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 235:935-945
Childs, Emma; Astur, Robert S; de Wit, Harriet (2017) Virtual reality conditioned place preference using monetary reward. Behav Brain Res 322:110-114
Bershad, Anya K; Miller, Melissa A; de Wit, Harriet (2017) MDMA does not alter responses to the Trier Social Stress Test in humans. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 234:2159-2166
Weafer, Jessica; Lyon, Nicholas; Hedeker, Donald et al. (2017) Sweet taste liking is associated with subjective response to amphetamine in women but not men. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 234:3185-3194

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