Not Just Fun and Games: A Review of College Drinking Games Research From 2004 to 2013

Drinking games are a high-risk social drinking activity consisting of rules and guidelines that determine when and how much to drink (Polizzotto et al., 2007). Borsari\u27s (2004) seminal review paper on drinking games in the college environment succinctly captured the published literature as of February 2004. However, research on college drinking games has grown exponentially during the last decade, necessitating an updated review of the literature. This review provides an in-depth summary and synthesis of current drinking games research (e.g., characteristics of drinking games, and behavioral, demographic, social, and psychological influences on participation) and suggests several promising areas for future drinking games research. This review is intended to foster a better understanding of drinking game behaviors among college students and improve efforts to reduce the negative impact of this practice on college campuses

The mediating roles of coping, sleep, and anxiety motives in cannabis use and problems among returning veterans with PTSD and MDD.

Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), the two most prevalent mental health disorders in the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, are at increased risk for cannabis use and problems including cannabis use disorder (CUD). The present study examined the relationship of PTSD and MDD with cannabis use frequency, cannabis problems, and CUD as well as the role of three coping-oriented cannabis use motives (coping with negative affect, situational anxiety, and sleep) that might underlie this relationship. Participants were veterans (N = 301) deployed post 9/11/2001 recruited from Veterans Health Administration facility in the Northeast US based on self-reported lifetime cannabis use. There were strong unique associations between PTSD and MDD and cannabis use frequency, cannabis problems, and CUD. Mediation analyses revealed the three motives accounted, in part, for the relationship between PTSD and MDD with three outcomes in all cases but for PTSD with cannabis problems. When modeled concurrently, sleep motives, but not situational anxiety or coping with negative affect motives, significantly mediated the association between PTSD and MDD with use. Together with coping motives, sleep motives also fully mediated the effects of PTSD and MDD on CUD and in part the effect of MDD on cannabis problems. Findings indicate the important role of certain motives for better understanding the relation between PTSD and MDD with cannabis use and misuse. Future work is needed to explore the clinical utility in targeting specific cannabis use motives in the context of clinical care for mental health and CUD

The impact of sleep and psychiatric symptoms on alcohol consequences among young adults

OBJECTIVE: Independent lines of research have documented links between psychiatric symptoms and poor sleep quality, psychiatric symptoms and alcohol use, and alcohol use and poor sleep quality. The current study examined the synergistic effect of poor sleep quality and psychiatric symptoms on alcohol-related consequences in heavy-drinking young adults. METHOD: Matriculating college students reporting at least one heavy drinking episode over the first nine weeks of the semester (N = 385, 52% female) were categorized as experiencing ‘good’ (n = 280) versus ‘poor’ sleep quality (n = 105) and screening ‘positive’ (n = 203) or ‘negative’ (n = 182) for a psychiatric disorder. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; psychiatric diagnosis was assessed using the Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire; and alcohol-related consequences were assessed using the Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire. General linear models were used to examine the main effects and interaction between sleep quality and psychiatric symptoms on alcohol-related consequences. RESULTS: Sleep quality moderated the association between psychiatric screen and alcohol-related consequences among heavy-drinking college students, such that psychiatric symptoms were associated with more alcohol-related consequences in the context of poor sleep quality. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of poor sleep quality and psychiatric symptoms is associated with increased alcohol-related consequences among heavy-drinking college students. Given the significant interaction between these symptoms, healthcare providers are encouraged to screen for the presence of sleep and psychiatric disorders among heavy-drinking young adults and to provide empirically-supported treatments as appropriate

Multi-tissue integrative analysis of personal epigenomes

Evaluating the impact of genetic variants on transcriptional regulation is a central goal in biological science that has been constrained by reliance on a single reference genome. To address this, we constructed phased, diploid genomes for four cadaveric donors (using long-read sequencing) and systematically charted noncoding regulatory elements and transcriptional activity across more than 25 tissues from these donors. Integrative analysis revealed over a million variants with allele-specific activity, coordinated, locus-scale allelic imbalances, and structural variants impacting proximal chromatin structure. We relate the personal genome analysis to the ENCODE encyclopedia, annotating allele- and tissue-specific elements that are strongly enriched for variants impacting expression and disease phenotypes. These experimental and statistical approaches, and the corresponding EN-TEx resource, provide a framework for personalized functional genomics