Drug Abuse Prevention: A Lifecourse Perspective IV Project 1

A primary mission of the Core portion of this grant is to ensure that the scientific investigators in the Center are in regular communication concerning their projects, so that ideas are being shared and insights gained in one project can inform research in the other projects. Recently we have broadened our outreach so that similar communications are undertaken with colleagues in other departments and centers on campus, as well as with colleagues at other centers across the nation. This mission is accomplished with regular meetings of the executive committee. monthly CDART Research Forum presentations, and intermittent meetings with researchers at other institutions. We recognize the importance of keeping this mission in sight at all times. and every meeting includes at least one agenda item (e,g., project updates, common readings)specifically designed to foster this mission. d) Plans: The Core plans to continue efforts to broaden the research perspective of CDART. A major goal for the upcoming year is to execute a one-year pilot project that will test the hypothesis that high sensation seeker adolescents exposed to novel and emotional visual stimuli have enhanced brain activity compared tolow sensation seekers. The idea for this proposal was spawned from the aforementioned talks withresearchers at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as with Dr. Elliott Stein from NIDA. who gave a talk on this topic on campus during the last year. Faculty from the Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology (Dr.Jane Joseph), Behavioral Sciences (Dr. Yang Jiang), and Communication (Dr. R. Lewis Donohew) at Kentucky were recruited to develop the attached proposal for the project (see pages Core progress report). The pilot project will be managed through the Core budget. We plan to continue and even increase our training efforts. As part of our training mission, we have a number of graduate students and postdoctoral trainees working on the three Center projects, and we sponsored four of them to attend the SPR meeting in May 2004. In addition, all three projects are currently recruiting individuals to fill postdoctoral positions, with one position filled to date. This is the first time the Center has systematically sought to recruit at the national level for postdoctoral trainees across all of theCenter's projects. At the national level, we have also had preliminary discussions with NIDA staff about organizing a workshop on translational research relevant to prevention. The plan is to build on the workshop presented previously as a satellite at SPR, with a special emphasis on recruiting young scholars in training. Although we initially thought that we could have the workshop in Lexington, it may be better to have it tied to a national conference (CPDD, SPR or APA). Drs. Wilson Compton and Liz Ginexi will be visiting the Center in late October to provide feedback regarding progress and future directions. Finally, given that the Center has made a smooth transition to the new administrative structure, and given that project 3 is now up and running successfully, we plan to revert to annual progress reports, rather than the quarterly reports. This will allow the Center faculty to devote more uninterrupted time to complete the specific aims of the projects. Human subjects: Not applicable e) Publications: In addition to the publications associated specifically with the individual projects (see later), relevant publications emanating from the Core executive committee during the previous year were as follows: Abrams, David B., Frances Leslie, Robin Mermelstein, Kimberly Kobus, Richard R. Clayton. (2003) Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Volume 5, Suppl. No.1, December 2003, Introduction pages 5-10. Bardo, M. T. (2004). High-risk behavior during adolescence: Comments on part 1. In R E. Dahl and L. P. Spear (Eds,), Adolescent brain development: Vulnerabilities and opportunities. Volume 1021 of The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (pp 1-2). New York Academy of Sciences Press, New York, NY. Bevins, RA., & Bardo, M.T., Editors (2004), Motivational factors in the etiology of drug abuse. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE. Brown, T.L., Flory, K., Lynam, D., Leukefeld, C., & Clayton, R (2004). Comparing the developmental trajectories of marijuana use of African American and Caucasian adolescents: Patterns, antecedents, and consequences. Experimental & Clinical Psychopharmacology, 12,47-57.