This seminar focuses on component processes of decision making in substance use disorders.
About this Event
Persistent choices for drugs at the expense of other, more adaptive rewards is a cardinal behavioural feature of substance use disorders. Despite this, little is known about the processes underpinning these decisions in human drug users, and how interventions alter these processes. This seminar will present data from studies examining two key component processes of decision making in relation to substance use disorders: a) reinforcement learning, the process of learning iteratively from reward and loss to guide subsequent choices; and b) value-based, or goal directed, decision making. Findings indicate that decision science methods can provide important insights into the mechanisms sustaining problematic drug use, potentially informing novel approaches to treatment.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Gillinder Bedi is a Senior Research Fellow (Addiction and Youth Mental Health) at Orygen National Centre for Excellence in Youth Mental Health and Melbourne University, Centre for Youth Mental Health. She joined Orygen in 2017 to lead the development of a clinical drug and alcohol research program. Gill completed graduate training in clinical psychology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, investigating cognitive function and mood in ecstasy and marijuana users. Her postdoctoral research, which focused on characterizing the acute effects of MDMA (ecstasy) in humans, was undertaken at the University of Chicago. From 2009 until 2017, she was a faculty member in the Division on Substance Use Disorders at Columbia University Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute in NYC. Gill’s research interests include experimental medicine models of drug use and misuse, emerging substance use disorders in young people, and neurobehavioral processes contributing to the onset and maintenance of substance use disorders. She uses a range of range of research methods including clinical trials, human behavioural pharmacology and neuroimaging (MRI).