The director of the Center for Addiction Research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has received a $3.6 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study the decision-making process of cocaine users.
The grant will be used to fund a five-year study of the ways cocaine addicts make specific decisions. The study will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify those parts of the brain that addicts use in making important decisions.
"We know that individuals who are cocaine dependent make risky decisions, decisions that will put them at risk for anything from auto accidents to sexually transmitted diseases," said Warren K. Bickel, Ph.D., a professor in the UAMS Department of Psychiatry. "All of their decisions revolve around the drug. Now we’re going to study active users, recreational users and those who have never used cocaine to see how they make specific decisions involving risky behaviors."
The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that the total costs of substance abuse is more than half a trillion dollars each year.
