MODERATED-MEDIATION MODEL OF PERSONALITY AND ALCOHOL

poster abstractPrevious work has shown that both positive (PUR) and negative urgency (NUR) (tendency to act rashly in the face of extreme emotions), predict problematic alcohol consumption (Cyders et al., 2009), and that this relationship is mediated through enhancement and coping motives (Settles et al., 2010). Moreover, research shows that there is a negative relationship between risk and involvement, and that there is a positive relationship between benefit and involvement (Siegel et al., 1994). However, there has not been a lot of research done that looks at the moderational role of risk and perception benefit on the relationship between personality and alcohol, as well as motives and alcohol consumption. Thus, we hypothesize that (1) the relationship between PUR and NUR will be mediated by enhancement and coping motives (respectively); (2) the relationship between coping and enhancement motives and alcohol consumption will be moderated by perception of risk and benefit. 447 first year students participated in the study (75.3% female; mean age=21.02, SD=4.96), and the majority of the sample was Caucasian. We conducted a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses (according to Cohen et al., 2003), as well as the moderated-mediation analyses (Preacher et al., 2007). Both NUR and PUR significantly predicted alcohol consumption (NUR: β=.330, p<.000; PUR: β=.317, p<.000), and this relationships were mediated by coping (β=.415, p<.000) and enhancement motives (β=.507, p<.000) respectively. The indirect relationship between PUR and alcohol, mediated through enhancement motives, was moderated through perception of benefit (t=2.03, p=.044) and risk (t= -2.67, p=.01) (benefit: from z=4.73, p=.000 when PUR is 1 SD below the mean to z=5.64, p=.000 when PUR is 1 SD above the mean; risk: from z= -1.04, p=.30 when PUR is 1 SD below the mean to z= -3.63, p=.000 when PUR is 1 SD above the mean), whereas only perception of benefit significantly moderated the indirect relationship between NUR and alcohol use (t=1.68, p=.09) mediated through coping motives (from z=3.96, p=.000 when PUR is 1 SD below the mean to z=5.62, p=.000 when PUR is 1 SD above the mean). Therefore, the mediational relationship between urgency and alcohol use through motives seem to be moderated by one’s perception of benefit and risk

THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF EMOTION REGULATION AND URGENCY

poster abstractRecent studies have indicated five distinct facets of impulsivity related personality traits—each differentially related to risky behaviors. These facets are: sensation seeking, positive and negative urgency, premeditation, and perseverance. Urgency, defined as a tendency to behave impulsively in face of strong emotions, has been found to be the most consistent predictor of a number of problematic risky behaviors—including problematic substance use, pathological gambling, and problematic eating behaviors. It has been theorized that this relationship between urgency and problematic risky be-haviors can be attributed to an underlying dysfunction in the ability to regu-late emotions. No studies have examined the neural correlates of the urgen-cy facets. However, prior studies have looked at the neural correlates of emotion regulation, which is an aspect of the urgency facets. The intention of this poster is to review the neural correlates of emotion regulation in or-der to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the urgency facets. Our review of the literature indicates that the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex are involved in emotion regulation. Particularly, emotion regulation processes may be attributed to the independent and syn-ergistic functioning of these regions. These findings indicate that urgency and possibly other impulsivity related personality traits may have measura-ble neural correlates. Moreover, these findings also introduce the possibility of targeting neural dysfunctions in order to reduce emotionally driven impul-siveness and consequent problematic behaviors

The Interaction between Sensation Seeking and Negative Affect Lability on Alcohol Involvement

poster abstractSensation seeking has been inconsistently associated with increased alcohol involvement, suggesting that there might be moderating factors. Considering that sensation seeking has been associated with negative affect and affect lability, negative affect lability might moderate the sensation seeking-alcohol involvement association. We hypothesized that negative affect lability would enhance the effect of sensation seeking on alcohol involvement. Using a large sample of college undergraduate students (n = 734), the current study tested whether negative affect lability moderated the effect of sensation seeking on levels of (1) hazardous alcohol use and (2) alcohol related problems. The sample was 74.6% female and 72.7% Caucasian, and had a mean age of 22.22 (SD = 6.31). Affect lability was measured as anxiety and depression lability, and as anger lability. The hypothesis was tested using multiple regression and interactions were probed using simple slope analyses. Negative affect lability moderated the effect of sensation seeking on hazardous alcohol use and alcohol related problems. Sensation seeking predicted greater levels of hazardous alcohol use among participants with low levels of ADL (b = 1.19, p < .001), but this effect weakened at high levels of ADL (b = 0.11, p = .66). Similarly, the effect of sensation seeking on alcohol related problems was strongest for participants with low levels of AL (b = 1.10, p < .001), but weaker for participants with high levels of AL (b = -.17, p = .58). These findings are inconsistent with our hypothesis, and suggest that concurrent negative affect lability actually diminishes the effect of sensation seeking on hazardous alcohol use and alcohol related problems. These findings highlight the importance of considering negative affect lability among sensation seekers with problematic alcohol use

MEASUREMENT OF CONSTRUCTS USING SELF-REPORT AND BEHAVIORAL LAB TASKS: IS THERE OVERLAP IN NOMOTHETIC SPAN AND CONSTRUCT REPRESENTATION FOR IMPULSIVITY?

poster abstractAlthough highly emphasized in psychological research, there has been little empirical evidence examining the overlap in meaning for self-report measures and construct representation for behavioral lab tasks in most psy-chological constructs. Using the personality trait of impulsivity as an exam-ple, the authors completed a meta-analysis of 27 published research studies examining the relationship between these methods. In general, although there is a statistically significant relationship between multidimensional self-report and lab task impulsivity (r = 0.097), practically, the relationship is small. Examining relationships among unidimensional impulsivity self-report and lab task conceptualizations indicated very little overlap in self-report and behavioral lab task constructs. Significant relationships were found between lack of perseverance and prepotent response inhibition (r = 0.099); between lack of planning and prepotent response inhibition (r = 0.106), delay re-sponse (r = 0.134), and distortions in elapsed time (r = 0.104); between negative urgency and prepotent response inhibition (r = 0.106); and be-tween sensation seeking and delay response (r = 0.131). This little conver-gent validity evidence for impulsivity as measured by self-report and behav-ioral lab tasks could indicate that these two measures are assessing different constructs. If these are different constructs, referring to them in the litera-ture as “impulsivity” influences one to think of them as representing a uni-tary underlying construct, when, in fact, we may be measuring disparate constructs. When disparate measures are described using the same multidi-mensional moniker, little forward progress can be made in figuring out how a trait relates to a criterion of interest. Researchers should take care to specify which particular unidimensional constructs are operationalized with not only impulsivity, but with all traits. If self-report and lab task conceptu-alizations measure disparate aspects of impulsivity, we, as a field, should not expect large conceptual overlap between these methods

SEXTING BEHAVIORS, ALCOHOL USE, AND IMPULSIVITY

poster abstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence of “sexting” among college students and examine the relationship between individuals’ drinking behaviors, sensation-seeking (SS), and sexting behaviors. Sexting refers to exchanging sexually provocative picture or text messages via mo-bile phone or Internet; it has received much attention in the media due to the risks associated with the behavior, such as unwanted attention and so-cial humiliation. Participants (n = 575 undergraduates; 58.7% female; 61.9% Caucasian; mean age = 21.1, SD age = 5.05) completed the AUDIT (Babor et al., 2001), the UPPS-P Impulsive Behaviors Scale (Lynam et al., 2009), and the Sexting Behaviors Scale. We conducted correlation and multiple regression analyses to test the fol-lowing study hypotheses: We predicted that SS would significantly relate to sexting and drinking behaviors, and that drinking behavior would mediate the relationship between SS and sexting. Hypotheses were supported. Drinking behavior and SS significantly correlated with sexting (r = .270, p < .01 and r = .243, p < .01, respectively). Additionally, drinking behaviors partially mediated the relationship between SS and sexting (Sobel test sta-tistic = 3.275; p = .001). The data, although cross-sectional, suggest that SS influences sexting behaviors, in part because of its influence on alcohol use. Alcohol use further increases the likelihood of sexting behaviors. These relationships suggest that people are sexting while drinking, and it’s possible that although sexting can occur without the consumption of al-cohol, drinking leads to more risky sexting. Although the direction of this causal pathway cannot be determined with the current cross-sectional de-sign, the pattern of results is consistent with this interpretation. The implica-tions of these findings are important because of the potential sexting risks, and sexting while drinking may be a more dangerous combination based on alcohol’s relation to other risky behaviors

Development of a High-Throughput Functional Screen Using Nanowell-Assisted Cell Patterning

Living-cell-based screens can facilitate lead discovery of functional therapeutics of interest. A versatile and scalable method is reported that uses dense arrays of nanowells for imparting defined patterns on monolayers of cells. It is shown that this approach can coordinate a multi-component biological assay by designing and implementing a high-throughput, functional nanoliter-scale neutralization assay to identify neutra­lizing antibodies against HIV.National Cancer Institute (U.S.) (P30-CA14051

Mechanisms Underlying the Relationship between Negative Affectivity and Problematic Alcohol Use

poster abstractResearch has long supported the role of negative affectivity for problematic alcohol consumption (Bechara, 2005; Dolan, 2007; Larsen, 2000; Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000; Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001). However, the mechanisms that underlie how negative affective traits influence problematic alcohol use and attentional biases are not well understood. These inconsistencies can be attributed to three possible reasons: (1) research has often utilized broad measures of negative affective traits that can mask the effect of specific underlying unidimensional traits (Smith, Fischer & Fister, 2003), (2) research has tended to utilize only the valence of traits and has often failed to consider how activation of traits might predict behavioral outcomes, and (3) research has not fully incorporated other aspects of affective traits (e.g. affective lability and emotion-based rash action) that could be serving as mechanisms in predicting problematic alcohol use. The current study sought to characterize mechanisms that drive problematic alcohol use and attentional biases. Three undergraduate student studies were conducted (n = 510, 429, and 38). Negative urgency partially mediated the effects of negative affectivity (B for indirect effect = .119, CI = .09 – .16) and affect lability (B for indirect effect = .928, CI = .47 – 1.45) on problematic alcohol use. Activation level of hostility predicted increased variance in problematic alcohol consumption (R2 change = .01, β = .16, p = .02) above trait valence. Negative urgency predicted alcohol attentional biases over and above valence and activation (β = 2.23, p = .05). Negative urgency is a prime mechanism by which negative affective traits influence problematic alcohol consumption. This suggests that the relationship between negative urgency or lack of planning and problematic alcohol consumption could be driven, in part, by increases in attentional biases when cued with alcohol stimuli, although this was not directly tested in the current study

Mannitol polymorphs as carrier in dpis formulations: Isolation characterization and performance

The search for best performing carriers for dry powder inhalers is getting a great deal of interest to overcome the limitations posed by lactose. The aerosolization of adhesive mixtures between a carrier and a micronized drug is strongly influenced by the carrier solid-state properties. This work aimed at crystallizing kinetically stable D-mannitol polymorphs and at investigating their aerosolization performance when used in adhesive mixtures with two model drugs (salbutamol sulphate, SS, and budesonide, BUD) using a median and median/high resistance inhaler. A further goal was to assess in vitro the cytocompatibility of the produced polymer-doped mannitol polymorphs toward two lung epithelial cell lines. Kinetically stable (up to 12 months under accelerate conditions) α, and δ mannitol forms were crystallized in the presence of 2% w/w PVA and 1% w/w PVP respectively. These solid phases were compared with the β form and lactose as references. The solid-state properties of crystallized mannitol significantly affected aerosolization behavior, with the δ form affording the worst fine particle fraction with both the hydrophilic (9.3 and 6.5%) and the lipophilic (19.6 and 32%) model drugs, while α and β forms behaved in the same manner (11–13% for SS; 53–58% for BUD) and better than lactose (8 and 13% for SS; 26 and 39% for BUD). Recrystallized mannitol, but also PVA and PVP, proved to be safe excipients toward lung cell lines. We concluded that, also for mannitol, the physicochemical properties stemming from different crystal structures represent a tool for modulating carrier-drug interaction and, in turn, aerosolization performance

Negative urgency and ventromedial prefrontal cortex responses to alcohol cues: FMRI evidence of emotion-based impulsivity

BACKGROUND: Recent research has highlighted the role of emotion-based impulsivity (negative and positive urgency personality traits) for alcohol use and abuse, but has yet to examine how these personality traits interact with the brain's motivational systems. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we tested whether urgency traits and mood induction affected medial prefrontal responses to alcohol odors (AcO). METHODS: Twenty-seven social drinkers (mean age = 25.2, 14 males) had 6 fMRI scans while viewing negative, neutral, or positive mood images (3 mood conditions) during intermittent exposure to AcO and appetitive control (AppCo) aromas. RESULTS: Voxel-wise analyses (p AppCo] activation throughout medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) regions. Extracted from a priori mPFC and vmPFC regions and analyzed in Odor (AcO, AppCo) × Mood factorial models, AcO activation was greater than AppCo in left vmPFC (p AppCo] activation. Negative urgency also mediated the relationship between vmPFC activation and both (i) subjective craving and (ii) problematic drinking. CONCLUSIONS: The trait of negative urgency is associated with neural responses to alcohol cues in the vmPFC, a region involved in reward value and emotion-guided decision-making. This suggests that negative urgency might alter subjective craving and brain regions involved in coding reward value