About the Project
Use of illicit stimulants, particularly methamphetamine, is at an alarmingly high level in certain populations of youth. Illicit stimulants are extremely habit-forming and hazardous, and use is linked to increases in HIV risk. Their use often portends an ominous future for youth who have progressed beyond gateway drugs to this hard-drug class. Yet, there is insufficient knowledge about the processes underlying the early development of this behavior and its likely risks. This project focuses on several of the most promising processes consistently uncovered in multiple independent lines of basic research but not previously applied to adolescent stimulant use or HIV risk. Two sets of processes of focus are:
- Spontaneous or implicit cognitive processes, which encode and activate learned associations promoting risk behavior; and
- Protective, specific executive functions that inhibit or at least dampen the effects of such associations on behavior
The project’s major study employs a three-wave, intensive longitudinal design using validated, primarily lab-based assessments across ages during which drug use progression to illicit stimulants and onset of hazardous sex are most likely in an at-risk teenage population. Despite this risk, the target population is quite amenable to mobile lab-based, computerized assessment and future intervention. The studied processes are relevant to future interventions, because they are sufficiently specific and have been delineated thoroughly in several independent lines of previous research. Thus, clear implications can emerge from the evaluation of the studied alternative models of risk behavior. The integration of validated lab-based methods and processes into an “indicated” population study of youth helps the project have potentially substantial implications for innovation in theories of drug use and HIV risk as well as future interventions that could target the studied processes.
Although this is an ongoing study, data collection has finished and some successful results have been published. However, additional research questions can be answered. Data may be available for advanced graduate students wanting to write publishable manuscripts in collaboration with project faculty.
Investigators
Alan Stacy, PhD
Principal Investigator
Email address: alan.stacy@cgu.edu
Findings
Data collection and analysis may be available for further research. For more information, please contact Alan Stacy at alan.stacy@cgu.edu.
Acknowledgements
Funding for Teenage Stimulant Use: Neurally Plausible Spontaneous and Reflective Processes was provided by Award Number R01 DA024659 from the National Institute On Drug Abuse. The content displayed is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute On Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health.