A person-centered approach to understanding negative reinforcement drinking among first year college students.

The current study used a person-centered approach (i.e. latent profile analysis) to identify distinct types of college student drinkers based on the predictions of motivational, social learning, and stress and coping theories of maladaptive drinking. A large sample (N=844; 53% female) of first-year undergraduates from two institutions, public and private, who reported consuming one or more drinks in the last three months completed measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms, positive alcohol-outcome expectancies, negative life events, social support, drinking motives, drinking level and drinking-related problems. Latent profile analysis revealed a small subgroup of individuals (n=81, 9%) who conformed to the anticipated high-risk profile; specifically, this group demonstrated high levels of negative affect, coping motives, drinks per week, and drinking-related problems. However, additional groups emerged that showed patterns inconsistent with the proposed vulnerability profile (e.g., high negative affect, positive expectancies, and negative life events, but relatively low drinking levels). Findings from our person-centered approach showing the presence of groups both consistent and inconsistent with the predictions of motivational, social learning, and stress and coping theories highlight the need to identify and target certain college students for prevention and intervention of negative affect-related drinking.

Reward-related dorsal striatal activity differences between former and current cocaine dependent individuals during an interactive competitive game.

Cocaine addiction is characterized by impulsivity, impaired social relationships, and abnormal mesocorticolimbic reward processing, but their interrelationships relative to stages of cocaine addiction are unclear. We assessed blood-oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) signal in ventral and dorsal striatum during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in current (CCD; n = 30) and former (FCD; n = 28) cocaine dependent subjects as well as healthy control (HC; n = 31) subjects while playing an interactive competitive Domino game involving risk-taking and reward/punishment processing. Out-of-scanner impulsivity-related measures were also collected. Although both FCD and CCD subjects scored significantly higher on impulsivity-related measures than did HC subjects, only FCD subjects had differences in striatal activation, specifically showing hypoactivation during their response to gains versus losses in right dorsal caudate, a brain region linked to habituation, cocaine craving and addiction maintenance. Right caudate activity in FCD subjects also correlated negatively with impulsivity-related measures of self-reported compulsivity and sensitivity to reward. These findings suggest that remitted cocaine dependence is associated with striatal dysfunction during social reward processing in a manner linked to compulsivity and reward sensitivity measures. Future research should investigate the extent to which such differences might reflect underlying vulnerabilities linked to cocaine-using propensities (e.g., relapses).

Coping, meaning in life, and quality of life in congestive heart failure patients.

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined (1) whether particular coping strategies used to deal with congestive heart failure (CHF) are related to meaning in life across time, and (2) whether meaning in life mediates the effect of coping on health-related quality of life. METHODS: A sample of 155 CHF patients received questionnaire packets at two time points, 6 months apart. Main outcome measures included Meaning in Life and Mental and Physical Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL). RESULTS: Coping (particularly acceptance/positive reinterpretation and religious coping) was not only related to meaning in life, but also to increased meaning over time. Further, meaning in life was related to both mental and physical components of HRQOL. However, coping was minimally related to HRQOL and its effects were not mediated by meaning in life. CONCLUSIONS: These results add to accumulating evidence that life meaning is important in the context of living with a chronic, life-threatening illness. Further, coping--especially acceptance and religious coping--is related to increased life meaning over time in the context of life limiting illness.