Current Drug Abuse Reviews

Ricardo Jorge Dinis-Oliveira graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2003 from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto. By the same institution obtained the PhD in Toxicology in 2007. He was awardedBy Rector Dispatch, the European PhD in 2008 and since then develops scientific and academic activity in the area of Toxicology and Pharmacology, in their preclinical, clinical and forensic areas. He Holds the COHiTEC 2007 program organized by the Porto Business School in collaboration with North Caroline State University and holds the Entrepreneurship Course organized by UPIN - Innovation University of Porto.

Paolo Mannelli graduated from medical school in 1986 and completed his residency in Psychiatry at the Universita’ Cattolica S.Cuore in Rome, Italy. He moved to the U.S. and has fully developed his academic and research activity at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA and at Duke University in Durham, NC where he currently works. His interests in drug addiction encompass neurobiological, translational, and clinical aspects of substance use disorders, in particular intoxication and withdrawal from opioids, alcohol and cocaine, as well as biological markers of disease and comorbid disorders. He has participated in national treatment development and guideline panels.

Dr. Stewart is a professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, and Community Health & Epidemiology at Dalhousie University, and a licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Stewart is a member of the Scientific Advisory to the Canadian Centre of Substance Abuse, and Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Gambling Issues. Dr. Stewart has 20+ years’ experience in researching the role of psychological factors in contributing to addictive behaviors and comorbid emotional disorders. Dr. Stewart founded the Centre for Addiction Research at Dalhousie (CARD), a virtual centre at Dalhousie fostering collaborations among faculty members conducting research on addiction, and is on the executive of the Quebec-Maritimes node of the CIHR-funded Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM). Dr. Stewart has published over 290 scientific articles, 9 books, and 36 book chapters.

Dr. Yoon is a staff psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. His research interests include (1) pharmacotherapy for addictive disorders (especially alcohol use disorder) and (2) pharmacotherapy for psychiatric disorders (especially major depressive disorder).

Prof. Francesco Paolo Busardò obtained his Degree with honor in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Palermo (Italy), winning the Prize for the Best Thesis; he also got a MSc in Forensic Toxicology at the University of Glasgow (Scotland) and a PhD in Forensic Science at “Sapienza” University of Rome (Italy), where he currently works as adjunct professor in forensic toxicology. He is author of more than 110 papers with I.F., with a total I.F. higher than 300 and h-index of 15.

Jose M. Trigo is a neuroscientist specialized in drug addiction and translational neuroscience, my research interests involve the study of addiction and compulsive behaviors. I have wide expertise in the use of animal models of drug addiction (i.e. operant conditioning models, intravenous self-administration) to evaluate diverse aspects of the addiction process to different drugs including nicotine, cannabinoids, cocaine, MDMA and opiates. Additionally, I have coordinate/lead clinical studies in human addiction to several substances including cannabis and opioids.

Michael A. Cucciare Ph.D., is a core investigator at the VA Health Services Research & Development Center for Mental Healthcare and Outcomes Research and the South Central MIRECC at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. His research interests include addiction focused health services research in rural and Veteran populations.

Dr. Laura Cousino Klein is a Professor of Biobehavioral Health at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Klein earned a M.S. (1995) and Ph.D. (1997) in Medical Psychology from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD, and completed a National Institute of Mental Health post-doctoral fellowship in Health Psychology at UCLA before joining the Penn State faculty in 1999. Dr. Klein is expert in sex differences; stress and drug use, and uses a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates neuroendocrine, immunological, behavioral, and psychological variables to evaluate sex differences biobehavioral responses to stress. She has published over 60 peer reviewed articles, along with several book chapters. Dr. Klein has also received several awards for her excellence in teaching.

Dr. Junichi Kitanaka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the Hyogo College of Medicine in Nishinomiya, Japan. He received his PhDs in Pharmacology from Osaka University and from Hyogo College of Medicine. Dr. Kitanaka completed his post-doctoral fellowship from the Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse-NIH, USA, under the supervision of Dr. George Uhl. His research focuses on signs and symptoms of methamphetamine abuse and addiction. This includes research on behavioral analyses under acute methamphetamine overdose; studies of pharmacotherapy on methamphetamine abuse; and research on pathophysiological association of methamphetamine effects with brain histaminergic neuronal system. He also serves on the DAD editorial board since 2012.

Dr. Lesscher is Assistant Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at Utrecht University. She received her PhD in Neuroscience and received postdoctoral training at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at the University of California at San Francisco. Her preclinical research focuses on the neurobiological and behavioural mechanisms that determine the development of alcohol use disorder and the individual variation in the susceptibility for alcohol use disorder. She has established and improved animal models for alcohol use disorders that she combines with gene expression analysis, neuropharmacology and more recently also chemogenetics to understand the neurobiological basis for alcohol use disorder.

Dr. Kesheng Wang is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the East Tennessee State University, where he teaches courses on Biostatistics, Epidemiologic Methods, Genetic Epidemiology, Mixed Models and Clinical Trials, and SAS Programing with Application in Public Health. His research interests focus on biostatistics, statistical applications in biology and health sciences, chronic disease epidemiology and social-behavioral epidemiology (e.g., alcohol and substance use, cancer, diabetes and metabolic syndrome, depression and psychological distress), genetic epidemiology and statistical genetics/genomics (e.g., analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS) and next generation sequencing (NGS) data). He has published over 100 scientific papers and book chapters, and serves on 7 peer-reviewed editorial boards.

Ayman Hamdan-Mansour completed his PhD in nursing from the University of Pittsburgh. Currently he is a professor in psychiatric mental health nursing at the school of nursing, university of Jordan. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles and been keynote speaker in national and international mental health conferences. He has received more than five commendations in past five years including the distinguished researcher award in Jordan and the distinguished researcher at the University of Jordan two times, and distinguished researcher in Arab World from the Society of the Arab Faculties of Nursing. He has also served as consultant in the field of substance use and mental health services for number of national and international organizations including the WHO, JICA, UNESCO, NCFA, HPC, and USAIDS. Research focus including include youth mental health and substance related problems and has many publication in this field.

Dr. Pacchioni was born in Argentina where she received her doctoral degree in Neuropharmacology from Facultad de Ciencias Quimicas-Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in September 2004. Then, from November 2004 to September 2009 she had a postdoctoral position in the Department of Neurosciences at Medical University of South Carolina, where she worked under the supervision of Dr Peter Kalivas and Dr. Ron See. Since October 2009, she is back in her home country, where she holds a faculty position at the National University of Rosario and at CONICET. Her research interests are focus on the study of the molecular basis of drug addiction to find new and improved treatments. She has published 20 papers in peer reviewed international journals.

Rebecca Houston received her Ph.D. in Applied Biopsychology from the University of New Orleans and completed an NIAA funded postdoctoral position in the Alcohol Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She then served as a Senior Research Scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York from 2004 to 2016. Dr. Houston is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on neuropsychological and psychophysiological correlates of impulsivity and aggression within the context of substance use disorder risk and treatment.

Roberta Agabio has a degree in Medicine and PhDs in both Clinical Pharmacology and Psychiatry. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Her research is focused on the pharmacotherapy of alcohol use disorder, gender and sex differences in the field of addiction, early identification of excessive alcohol consumption and use of brief intervention to prevent alcohol use disorder. She is an active teacher in the field of alcohol use disorder. She is co-author of more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 15 book chapters.

Dr. Kouichi Yoshimasu, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist and an associate professor at Wakayama Medical University (Japan) as well as research collaborator at Mayo Clinic. His research interests are epidemiology and etiology of mental disorders, especially neurodevelopmental disorders.

Aviv M. Weinstein, Ph.D is an Associate Professor of Psychology in the School of Behavioral Science in Ariel University in Israel. He did his Ph.D in Psychology in the Psychology Dept. and the Psychopharmacology Unit School of Medical Sciences with David Nutt at the University of Bristol in the UK. He was a visiting research fellow at the Brain Imaging Center, Intramural Research Program (IRP) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital in Baltimore, MD USA where he was trained with Dr. Edythe London in PET brain imaging in drug addiction. He established a laboratory for brain imaging in drug addiction in the Depts. of Nuclear Medicine at Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv and in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem Israel. He published more than 70 manuscripts and book chapters on drug and behavioral addiction.

Prof. Dr. Hossam El-Beltagi is a Professor of Biochemistry, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University in Egypt. He has published over 70 articles and serves on 3 peer-reviewed editorial boards. He has also received several awards from his university and his country.

Dr John Cunningham is a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (Canada), Professor at University of Toronto, and Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. He also holds a Canada Research Chair in Addictions.

Dr. Duka is Professor of Experimental Psychology in the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience group of School of Psychology and co-director of the Sussex Addiction Research and Intervention Centre (SARIC) in University of Sussex. She studied Medicine in Athens with a PhD in Pharmacology. A post-doc in Neuropsychopharmacology at Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Germany, was followed with a post as head of the Clinical Psychopharmacology at Schering AG in Berlin. She returned in Academia 1995 as a Reader at Sussex University. Her work focusing in translating ideas and methodologies from animals to humans has been influential in particular with regard to research in addictive behaviours. She recently served as President of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society (2013-2015).

Dr. Mitch Earleywine (B.A. Columbia, Ph.D. Indiana) is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he teaches course on drugs and human behavior, substance abuse treatment and clinical research methods. He has received over 20 teaching commendations, including the coveted General Education Teaching Award from the University of Southern California and the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the State University of New York system. He has over 150 publications, including the books “Understanding Marijuana” (Oxford University Press) and “The Parents’ Guide to Marijuana” (Trans High Press).

Dr Mark Gillman is a renowned brain researcher and addictionologist and has lectured on nitrous oxide sedation over 250 times to lay and scientific audiences locally and internationally. He has over 300 publications including 5 full-length books, and a CD on the technique of conscious sedation with nitrous oxide. He has and had academic appointments in SA, Europe and North America. Recently, he advised the Ningxia Provincial Government (China) on addiction treatments with nitrous oxide. He has held numerous editorial advisory appointments at leading medical and scientific journals.

Using conscious sedation with nitrous oxide, he and colleagues discovered the new principle of biology (Gaseous neurotransmission). They also uncovered endorphin links to pain and pleasure and addiction.

Dr. Krystal is the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research, Professor of Neuroscience, and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine. He is also chief of Psychiatry for Yale New Haven Hospital and Director of the Clinical Neuroscience Division of the VA National Center for PTSD and the NIAAA Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcoholism. Dr. Krystal studies the neurobiology and treatment of psychiatric disorders and alcoholism using experimental psychopharmacology, neuroimaging, genetics, and computational approaches.

Christopher Martin, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on adolescent and young adult substance use and substance use disorders. This includes research on diagnostic criteria and algorithms for substance disorders; studies of consumption-based screening for youth substance problems; and research on risky patterns of substance use such as solitary drinking, polydrug use, and heavy and extreme binge drinking.

Dr. Meyerhoff’s research goal is to better understand the neurodegenerative processes associated with specific insults to the human brain and repair process after removal of these insults. Dr. Meyerhoff studies insults exceedingly common in the brain of veterans with substance use disorders (alcohol, cocaine, opioids, nicotine), psychiatric comorbidities such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and HIV infection. As senior scientist at the CIND, he primarily uses 1H MR to study mechanisms of neurodegenerative insults and recovery from them under special consideration of behavioral and cognitive correlations as well as genetic determinants.

Prosper N’Gouemo, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC, USA. His research focuses on the basic mechanisms of epileptogenesis, seizures and epilepsy, as well as the neurobiology of alcohol withdrawal seizures and pediatrics seizures related to prenatal alcohol exposure. The Georgetown University Medical Center honored N’Gouemo for his efforts with the GUMC Research Recognition Award at the Fourth Annual GUMC Convocation.

Mary C. Olmstead is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Her work focuses on understanding biological underpinnings of reward systems and how these impact conditions such as drug addiction and chronic pain. Dr. Olmstead completed degrees at the University of Toronto (BSc) and McGill University (MSc, PhD) as well as postdoctoral training at University of Cambridge, UK. She has held Visiting Scientist positions in France, both at the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellualaire in Strasbourg and the Centre d’ecologie fonctionalle et evolutive, Université de Montpellier.

Shafiqur Rahman, Ph.D. is Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at South Dakota State University in Brookings, USA. He received his Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Dr. Rahman completed his post-doctoral fellowship from Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis in USA. His research focus is drug discovery in neuropharmacology, i.e. the development of novel therapeutic candidates for the treatment of drug addiction and neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr. Rahman has authored over 120 scientific publications, edited multiple books in CNS disorders and drug addiction field, and served on editorial boards of several biomedical Journals.

Dr. Sher obtained a doctorate (Ph.D) in clinical psychology from Indiana University. He is currently Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri. His main areas of research focus on the etiology of alcoholism, refining addiction-related phenotypes, personality and psychopathology, and longitudinal research methods. He has published over 250 papers and is the author of Children of Alcoholics: A Critical Appraisal of Theory and Research (1991), co-author of Binge Drinking and Alcohol Misuse Among College Students and Young Adults (2015), and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Substance Use and Substance Use Disorders (2016).

Dr. Linda Carter Sobell is the President’s Distinguished Professor at Nova Southeastern (FL). She received her PhD in psychology (University of California, Irvine). She is nationally and internationally known for her research in the addictions field. She is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, Board Certified in Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology, ABPP, on the Board of Scientific Affairs (APA), and past president of ABCT. She has published over 300 articles and book chapters, serves on 9 peer-reviewed editorial boards, and authored 9 books. She has been the recipient of several federal grants and has received several awards.

Wim van den Brink (1952) received his medical degree in 1981 in Amsterdam and his PhD degree in 1989 in Groningen. Since 1992 he is full professor of Psychiatry and Addiction at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam. In 2014 he received the life time achievement award for science from the Netherlands Association of Psychiatry. He is (co)author of more than 500 scientific papers (HI=55) and has been a thesis advisor of 65 PhD students. He is one of the chief-editors of European Addiction Research. He is one of the founders and the president of the International Collaboration of ADHD and Substance Abuse (ICASA).

Tamara L. Wall earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Joint Doctoral Program between San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in substance abuse services at the University of California, San Francisco. She is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego where she researches the etiology and course of substance use disorders. Her studies are conducted within a developmental framework and focus on understanding mechanistic pathways of genetic influences on alcohol and other substance use as well as moderators of these effects.

F. Arbinaga, PhD, professor in Faculty of Education, Psychology and Sports Science at University of Huelva (Spain). In 1988, he graduated from the University of Seville (Spain). For more than 20 years, Félix had worked as a Clinical Psychology Specialist in the field of substance abuse and behavioral addictions. Nowadays, he develops his professional activity in the field of exercise and health, the use of substances in sports and addiction to exercise.