Is love really like a drug? VCU course examines science behind media portrayals of romance and substance abuse

Is love really like a drug? VCU course examines science behind media portrayals of romance and substance abuse

As part of a new course at Virginia Commonwealth University, students have authored papers analyzing pop songs — “Your Love is my Drug” by Kesha, “Drunk on a Plane” by Dierks Bentley, and Huey Lewis and the News’ “I Want a New Drug” among them — that deal with themes and metaphors related to romantic relationships and drug and alcohol abuse.

“I analyzed Justin Timberlake’s ‘Pusher Love Girl,’” said Ashley Stewart, a senior in the Department of Psychology in the College ...

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VCU, Swedish study finds divorce increases risk for developing alcohol use disorders

VCU, Swedish study finds divorce increases risk for developing alcohol use disorders

Divorce is causally related to a significant increase in risk for development of alcohol use disorders, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and Lund University in Sweden.

The study, titled “Divorce and the Onset of Alcohol Use Disorder: A Swedish Population-Based Longitudinal Cohort and Co-Relative Study,” was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on Jan. 20. It found strong causal associations between divorce and the subsequent onset of alcohol use disorder, with the rates ...

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Study investigates genetic, environmental factors in alcohol use disorder and divorce

Study investigates genetic, environmental factors in alcohol use disorder and divorce

Alcohol use disorder and divorce are strongly correlated, meaning that experiencing one makes it more likely to experience the other in one’s lifetime, according to a new study led by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The study, “Alcohol use disorder and divorce: Evidence for a genetic correlation in a population-based Swedish sample,” will appear in the journal Addiction, published by the Society for the Study of Addiction. The study was published online at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13719/abstract.

Previous research has shown that alcohol use disorder ...

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The 2016 VIPBG Excellence Awards Announced

The 2016 VIPBG Excellence Awards Announced

The Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics pre- and post-doc awards were announced on December 15, 2016 and presented by Drs. Brien Riley, Ph.D. and Hermine Maes, Ph.D.

Graduate student Megan Cooke was presented with the Kenneth S. Kendler Award for Excellence in Pre-Doctoral Research and post-doc Roseann Peterson received the Lindon Eaves Post-Doctoral Award.

These awards are given annually by VIPBG faculty to one outstanding pre- and post-doc student who have demonstrated excellence. The recipient ...

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VCU, Swedish study finds resilience protects against risk for developing alcohol use disorders

VCU, Swedish study finds resilience protects against risk for developing alcohol use disorders

Resilience considerably reduces risk for developing alcohol use disorders, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and Lund University in Sweden.

Substantial literature from the past few decades has investigated personality traits that are influential in the development of alcohol use disorders, but little attention has been paid to protective traits that guard against it.

“Studying protective factors rather than just what makes people at risk for something can inform prevention studies,” said first author Elizabeth ...

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Featured Student: Cassie Overstreet

Featured Student: Cassie Overstreet

By Elizabeth Long

Cassie Overstreet is a fifth-year student in Clinical Psychology. Prior to graduate school, Cassie’s research as an undergraduate at Auburn University and in the post-baccalaureate program at the National Institute of Mental Health focused on the relationship between trauma exposure and psychopathology on a phenotypic level. Subsequently, she became interested in the factors contributing to psychopathology from a more comprehensive view (e.g., genetic influences), which led her to Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral ...

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Methodological Development And Statistical Genetics

Methodological Development And Statistical Genetics

By Elizabeth Long

Silviu-Alin Bacanu, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. His interests in psychiatric genetics began while he was completing his PhD in statistics from the University of Pittsburgh. Upon graduating, he pursued these interests by working in psychiatric genetics research at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for several years, where he worked with on a variety of phenotypes, including schizophrenia, eating disorders, and Alzheimer’s disease. Subsequently, he obtained a research ...

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Featured Student: Elizabeth Do

Featured Student: Elizabeth Do

By Elizabeth Long

Elizabeth Do is a fifth-year student in the Psychiatric, Behavioral, and Statistical Genetics PhD program. Prior to her training at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Elizabeth earned her Bachelors of Arts in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and her Master of Public Health from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her desire to learn more about both the genetic and environmental factors contributing to mental health disorders led her to pursue ...

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Personal Experience Leads To Career In Anxiety Disorders

Personal Experience Leads To Career In Anxiety Disorders

By Elizabeth Long

John Hettema, MD., Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and the Director of the VCU Anxiety Disorders Specialty Clinic. Dr. Hettema has a PhD in physics, but a series of personal experiences with several close friends suffering from severe depression during his physics post-doctoral fellowship period ignited his interest in psychiatry. This interest sparked a career change, and he entered medical school at the Medical College of Virginia in 1992. During the summer of ...

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Featured Postdoc: Anna Docherty, Ph.D.

Featured Postdoc: Anna Docherty, Ph.D.

By Elizabeth Long

Anna Docherty, Ph.D. recently completed her postdoc training at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics. In two years at VIPBG, she secured an NIMH K01 and NARSAD Young Investigator Award to study the molecular genetics of schizophrenia and schizotypy, and published several papers using both biometrical and molecular genetics approaches. She just began a tenure-track professorship in Psychiatry and Human Genetics at the University of Utah, and her work dovetails extremely well ...

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