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Promoting Healthy Decision-Making Via Natural Environment Exposure: Initial Evidence And Future Directions, Meredith S. Berry, Meredith A. Repke, Alexander L. Metcalf, Kerry Jordan

Psychology Faculty Publications

Research within psychology and other disciplines has shown that exposure to natural environments holds extensive physiological and psychological benefits. Adding to the health and cognitive benefits of natural environments, evidence suggests that exposure to nature also promotes healthy human decision-making. Unhealthy decision-making (e.g., smoking, non-medical prescription opioid misuse) and disorders associated with lack of impulse control [e.g., tobacco use, opioid use disorder (OUD)], contribute to millions of preventable deaths annually (i.e., 6 million people die each year of tobacco-related illness worldwide, deaths from opioids from 2002 to 2017 have more than quadrupled in the United States alone). Impulsive and unhealthy …

Students’ Perspectives Of Experiential Learning In An Addictions Course, Tammi F. Dice, Kristy Carlisle, Rebekah Byrd

ETSU Faculty Works

Substance use disorder practitioners may identify as individuals in recovery, while others may have never experienced the challenge of abstinence. Without this lived experience, it may be difficult to accurately empathize with clients in recovery. Experiential learning is a way for students to live through an exercise in abstinence. The value of utilizing experiential learning for skill development and application of theory is established. However, there is no empirical research examining the use of experiential learning with undergraduate substance use disorder practitioner trainees not in recovery from addiction as a means to increase their ability to empathize with clients’ experiences. …

Stress-Induced Executive Dysfunction In Gdnf-Deficient Mice, A Mouse Model Of Parkinsonism, Mona Buhusi, Kaitlin Olsen, Benjamin Z. Young, Catalin V. Buhusi

Psychology Faculty Publications

Maladaptive reactivity to stress is linked to improper decision making, impulsivity, and discounting of delayed rewards. Chronic unpredictable stress alters dopaminergic function and re-shapes dopaminergic circuits in key areas involved in decision making, and impairs prefrontal-cortex dependent response inhibition and working memory. Glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is essential for regulating dopamine release in the basal ganglia and the survival of dopaminergic neurons, and GDNF-deficient mice are considered an animal model for aging-related Parkinsonism. Recently, GDNF expression in the striatum has been linked to resilience to stress. Here we investigated the effects of chronic unpredictable stress on decision making in GDNF-heterozygous …

Genetic Imaging Consortium For Addiction Medicine: From Neuroimaging To Genes, Scott Mackey, Kees-Jan Kan, Bader Chaarani, Nelly Alia-Klein, Albert Batalla, Samantha Brooks, Janna Cousijn, Alain Dagher, Michiel De Ruiter, Sylvane Desrivieres, Sarah W. Feldstein Ewing, Rita Goldstein, Anna Goudriaan, Mary M. Heitzeg, Kent Hutchison, Chiang-Shan R. Li, Edythe D. London, Valentina Lorenzetti, Maartje Luijten, Rocio Martin-Santos, Angelica M. Morales, Martin P. Paulus, Tomas Paus, Godfrey Pearlson, Renee Schluter, Reza Momenan, Lianne Schmaal, Gunter Schumann, Rajita Sinha, Zsuzsika Sjoerds, Dan J. Stein, Elliot A. Stein, Nadia Solowij, Susan Tapert, Anne Uhlmann, Dick Veltman, Ruth Van Holst, Hendrik Walter, Margaret J. Wright, Murat Yucel, Murat Yucel, Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, Derrek P. Hibar, Neda Jahanshad, Paul M. Thompson, David Glahn, Hugh Garavan, Patricia Conrod

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Since the sample size of a typical neuroimaging study lacks sufficient statistical power to explore unknown genomic associations with brain phenotypes, several international genetic imaging consortia have been organized in recent years to pool data across sites. The challenges and achievements of these consortia are considered here with the goal of leveraging these resources to study addiction. The authors of this review have joined together to form an Addiction working group within the framework of the ENIGMA project, a meta-analytic approach to multisite genetic imaging data. Collectively, the Addiction working group possesses neuroimaging and genomic data obtained from over 10,000 …

The Relationship Between Gaming Addictive Behavior, Satisfaction, And Success In Computer-Based Learning, Marlene Carrilho

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to examine the association between college students’ levels of gaming addictive behavior and their levels of student satisfaction and student success in a computer-based learning environment. Additionally, gender was investigated as a moderator of the association between gaming addictive behavior and student success and between gaming addictive behavior and student satisfaction. Data was collected through online surveys from a convenience sample of undergraduate students enrolled at a large, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS)-accredited, evangelical Christian university located in Virginia. The statistical program SPSS 22.0 was used for the analyses. Hierarchical …

Social Media Network Participation And Academic Performance In Senior High Schools In Ghana, Jeffrey Mingle, Musah Adams

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study looks at social media network participation and academic performance in senior high schools. The study was aimed at identifying social media network sites and their usage among students, how students networked and participated on social media networks, time invested by students on social networks, the effects of social media on students’ grammar and spelling as well as the effects of social network participation on the student’s academic performance within the context of the social learning and the use and gratification theories.

To achieve the objectives of the research, the study used a mixed method approach which involved the …

Teaching Self: The Ambiguity Of Lived Experience In Classroom Discourse, Scott V. Gealy

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Inspired by Paul Heilker’s notion of the essay as a form of exploration over argument, embodying an anti-scholastic and chrono-logical approach, and Candace Spigelman’s endorsement of experience as evidence in academic discourse, this thesis weaves memoir into more traditional scholarship in an effort to complicate the archetype of the effective teacher. Furthermore, the essay seeks to deconstruct conventional student, teacher, and cultural binaries with the help of the theoretical work of Deborah Britzman, Parker Palmer, Mikhail Bakhtin, Joy Ritchie and David Wilson and others, while using Scott Russell Sanders’ narrative essay “Under the Influence” as a mentor text for …

Clinical And Reliable Change In An Australian Residential Substance Use Program Using The Addiction Severity Index, Frank P. Deane, Peter J. Kelly, Trevor P. Crowe, Justin C. Coulson, Geoffrey C.B Lyons

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Although the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) is one of the most frequently used measures in alcohol and other drug research, it has rarely been used to assess clinical and reliable change. This study assessed clients' clinical and reliable change at The Salvation Army residential substance abuse treatment centers in Australia. A total of 296 clients completed ASI interviews on admission to treatment and 3 months after discharge from treatment. Clients demonstrated significant improvement on all seven ASI composites. The range of reliable change for each ASI composite varied from 30% to 70%. More than two-thirds of clients experienced clinically significant …

Locked Up Means Locked Out: Women, Addiction And Incarceration, Vanessa Alleyne

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

In one of the quietest but most significant social phenomena of our time, national statistics indicate that the number of incarcerated women has quadrupled over the last 20 years. The status of women of color in America, already precarious, is further eroded under this new world order, as 54% of the incarcerated female population is African American or Latina. Harsh drug laws, mandatory sentencing, and policing strategies which focus on smaller crimes have succeeded in netting large numbers of mothers, grandmothers, single breadwinners and other women whose primary offenses prior to arrest were being poor and often having a substance …

Performance Of A Brief Assessment Tool For Identifying Substance Use Disorders, Todd Campbell, Norman G. Hoffman, Michael B. Madson, Timothy Melchert

College of Education Faculty Research and Publications

Objective: Evaluation of the performance of a brief assessment tool for identifying substance use disorders. The Triage Assessment for Addictive Disorders (TAAD) is a triage instrument that provides professionals with a tool to evaluate indications of current substance use disorders in accordance with the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. The TAAD is a 31-item structured interview that addresses both alcohol and other drug issues to discriminate among those with no clear indications of a diagnosis, those with definite, current indications of abuse or dependence, and those with inconclusive diagnostic indications.

Methods: Employing a sample of 1325 women between the ages of 18 …