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Motivated by the historical components of the ongoing U.S. opioid epidemic, this study examines how public support for redistributive drug treatment changes with awareness that someone's opioid addiction started with a legally acquired prescription. Using different versions of a vignette, we vary in a randomized design whether someone's addiction to painkillers started with a legally acquired prescription or with the decision to take pills from a friend. After reading the vignette, participants expressed their level of support for a policy that uses income redistribution to fund a program that provides the person in the vignette with drug treatment. We find that participants are less likely to support redistributive drug treatment when a prescription precipitates the addiction. The results imply that emphasizing the medical establishment's role in the opioid epidemic may actually make people less likely to favor using redistributive drug treatment to provide support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims The goal of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of topiramate up to 200 mg/day and of aripiprazole up to 15 mg/day, alone and combined, in reducing alcohol-related outcomes in a human laboratory study. Method This was a 5 week, between-subject, double-blind, placebo-controlled human laboratory study with topiramate [0 mg/day (placebo), 100 mg/day, 200 mg/day] and aripiprazole [0 mg/day (placebo), 7.5 mg/day, 15 mg/day] in 90 non-treatment seeking, heavy drinking, alcohol-dependent individuals. Main outcomes were the efficacy of 200 mg/day topiramate and 15 mg/day aripiprazole, alone and combined, in reducing drinks consumed during an alcohol self-administration procedure (human laboratory phase) and while receiving the study medications prior to the laboratory session (naturalistic drinking phase). Other outcomes in the laboratory phase included alcohol craving, and alcohol biphasic effects. Results In the human laboratory phase, topiramate 200 mg/day reduced alcohol craving [** P < 0.01] and amplified alcohol-induced stimulation [* P < 0.05], but did not reduce the number of drinks consumed. Topiramate 200 mg/day was also effective in reducing drinking days [* P < 0.05], and alcohol craving [* P < 0.05], in the naturalistic drinking phase. No significant findings were found for aripiprazole for any of the outcomes analyzed. Conclusion Participants receiving 200 mg/day topiramate reported reduced alcohol drinking and craving, and increased alcohol-related stimulation. These findings provide further support for the role of topiramate as a pharmacological treatment for AUD. ClinicalTrial.gov Identifier NCT00884884 Short Summary This study tested topiramate and aripiprazole alone and in combination. The results replicate past findings and suggest that topiramate may be an effective treatment for alcohol use disorder. The present results suggest that the combination of topiramate and aripiprazole do not warrant further evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The goal of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of topiramate up to 200 mg/day and of aripiprazole up to 15 mg/day, alone and combined, in reducing alcohol-related outcomes in a human laboratory study. Method: This was a 5 week, between-subject, double-blind, placebo-controlled human laboratory study with topiramate [0 mg/day (placebo), 100 mg/day, 200 mg/day] and aripiprazole [0 mg/day (placebo), 7.5 mg/day, 15 mg/day] in 90 non-treatment seeking, heavy drinking, alcohol-dependent individuals. Main outcomes were the efficacy of 200 mg/day topiramate and 15 mg/day aripiprazole, alone and combined, in reducing drinks consumed during an alcohol self-administration procedure (human laboratory phase) and while receiving the study medications prior to the laboratory session (naturalistic drinking phase). Other outcomes in the laboratory phase included alcohol craving, and alcohol biphasic effects. Results: In the human laboratory phase, topiramate 200 mg/day reduced alcohol craving [**P < 0.01] and amplified alcohol-induced stimulation [*P < 0.05], but did not reduce the number of drinks consumed. Topiramate 200 mg/day was also effective in reducing drinking days [*P < 0.05], and alcohol craving [*P < 0.05], in the naturalistic drinking phase. No significant findings were found for aripiprazole for any of the outcomes analyzed. Conclusion: Participants receiving 200 mg/day topiramate reported reduced alcohol drinking and craving, and increased alcohol-related stimulation. These findings provide further support for the role of topiramate as a pharmacological treatment for AUD. ClinicalTrial.gov Identifier: NCT00884884 Short Summary: This study tested topiramate and aripiprazole alone and in combination. The results replicate past findings and suggest that topiramate may be an effective treatment for alcohol use disorder. The present results suggest that the combination of topiramate and aripiprazole do not warrant further evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As society becomes more reliant on machines and automation, understanding how people utilize advice is a necessary endeavor. Our objective was to reveal the underlying neural associations during advice utilization from expert human and machine agents with fMRI and multivariate Granger causality analysis. During an X-ray luggage-screening task, participants accepted or rejected good or bad advice from either the human or machine agent framed as experts with manipulated reliability (high miss rate). We showed that the machine-agent group decreased their advice utilization compared to the human-agent group and these differences in behaviors during advice utilization could be accounted for by high expectations of reliable advice and changes in attention allocation due to miss errors. Brain areas involved with the salience and mentalizing networks, as well as sensory processing involved with attention, were recruited during the task and the advice utilization network consisted of attentional modulation of sensory information with the lingual gyrus as the driver during the decision phase and the fusiform gyrus as the driver during the feedback phase. Our findings expand on the existing literature by showing that misses degrade advice utilization, which is represented in a neural network involving salience detection and self-processing with perceptual integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives:Alcohol dependence represents a leading cause of mortality and morbidity. Understanding the variables that contribute to this diagnosis and its severity is critical. An overlap between factors that may predispose people to become obese and those that may increase the risk of alcohol dependence may exist. However, data in the literature are not conclusive. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the association between alcohol dependence and obesity-related factors, including biochemical and genetic factors. Methods:In a case–control study with 829 participants, factors involved with metabolism and obesity were assessed, including biochemical lipid and liver markers, and the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs8050136. Results:Increased triglycerides, having one or two minor A alleles for rs8050136 and being a smoker were associated with increased risk of alcohol dependence, while increased low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was associated with decreased risk. In addition, having abnormal gamma-glutamyl transferase and being female were factors associated with an increased severity of alcohol dependence. Conclusions:Our preliminary findings suggest a link between alcohol dependence and obesity-related biochemical and genetic factors. Future studies are needed to better understand if these factors may play a predictive role and/or may act as biomarkers for treatment response. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Philosophers have proposed that laypeople can have deterministic or indeterministic intuitions about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility. However, the psychophysiological mechanisms that generate these extreme intuitions are still underexplored. Exogenous oxytocin offers a unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of these underlying mechanisms, since this neuropeptide influences a wide range of outcomes related to social cognition and prosociality. This study investigated the effects of intranasal oxytocin on intuitions about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility by applying a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject design. Healthy male participants rated the moral responsibility of a hypothetical offender, who committed crimes in either a primed deterministic or an indeterministic universe. Under placebo, participants held the offender more morally responsible when acting in an indeterministic compared to a deterministic universe, which could be accredited to recognition of the offender’s freely chosen action to commit the crimes. Under oxytocin, participants rated the offender’s actions with greater leniency and similarly assigned lower moral responsibility in both universes. These findings strengthen the assumption that a person can have different intuitions about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility, which can be presumably dependent on motivational states associated with affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]