RIA seminars provide new insights into addiction

National experts on behavioral neuroscience, adolescent substance abuse and prescription drug addiction will visit UB’s Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) during its Fall Seminar Series beginning Sept. 9.

The three-part series, which is free and open to the public, is held on the first floor of RIA at 1021 Main St. on UB’s Downtown Campus. All seminars take place on Fridays at 10 a.m., with the exception of Sept. 9, a Wednesday.

The opening seminar on Sept. 9 will feature James MacKillop, who will discuss “Using Behavioral Economics and Neuroeconomics to Understand Addictive Behavior.”

MacKillop is the Peter Boris Chair in Addictions Research, director of the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research and professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. His research focuses on addictive behavior using behavioral economics, which integrates concepts and methods from psychology and economics to understand people’s preferences, choices and consumption behavior, and neuroeconomics, which integrates behavioral economics with cognitive neuroscience to understand how the brain encodes and executes these processes.

On Oct. 2, UB faculty member Craig Colder will present “Internalizing Problems and Developmental Pathways to Adolescent Substance Use: Risk or Protection?” Colder is professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Psychology. He also is director of UB’s Child and Adolescent Family Development Laboratory, which examines children’s cognitive, emotional, social and behavioral adjustment, including typical to atypical development, behavioral and emotional problems, well-being and social competence. His research interests are in identifying multiple levels of influence that contribute to the development of adolescent substance use, including temperament and personality, family influences and community factors.

The seminars conclude on Nov. 6 with a presentation by Carol J. Boyd, who will speak on “Teens’ Prescription Drug Abuse.” Boyd is the Deborah J. Oakley Professor of Nursing and a research professor at the Addiction Research Center in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. She currently studies the use, misuse and abuse of controlled medications — e.g., opioid analgesics — among youth and emerging adults. Her research draws attention to the variety of behaviors associated this form of substance abuse; indeed, she was one of the first to articulate the importance of “motivations” in determining adolescent risk for prescription drug abuse.

For more information about the Fall Seminar Series, contact Rebecca Houston at 716-887-2579 or visit the RIA website.