Jason Avery
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, OK·Neuroscience
People who live through many hardships in childhood, such as abuse, neglect or household dysfunction, are more likely to become addicted to drugs. They tend to start using earlier, use more heavily, and fail more often when they try to quit.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Psychology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
adverse childhood experiences
nicotine withdrawal
nicotine dependence
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Determine how the number of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) relates to daily nicotine intake, craving intensity and weakened self-control during withdrawal, using e-cigarette devices that record actual nicotine use, craving reports and blood cotinine.
- Test whether ACEs change activity in the mid-insular cortex, a brain region that senses internal body states, in ways linked to stronger craving, using fMRI during body-attention and vaping-cue tasks after 24 hours without nicotine.
- Test whether ACEs weaken prefrontal cortex activity, which supports resisting urges, during nicotine abstinence, using fMRI during self-control tasks and comparing scans after normal use and after 24 hours of abstinence.
More about the research
Why childhood adversity has this lasting effect on addiction is not well understood. This project looks at the question through nicotine withdrawal in people who use e-cigarettes.
Why it matters
Childhood adversity makes nicotine dependence more likely and quitting harder. By showing how ACEs alter the brain systems behind craving and self-control during withdrawal, this work could inform the design and refinement of treatments for substance use disorders. People with histories of childhood adversity who are trying to quit vaping or other drugs may benefit.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Meghan Morean
Yale University, CT·Public Health & Epidemiology
Refine an ENDS nicotine concentration label so its strength categories are anchored to cigarette nicotine content, using expert feedback and focus groups.
Merideth A. Addicott
Wake Forest University, NC·Neuroscience
Compare gray matter volume, white matter integrity, cerebral blood flow and cognitive performance among ex-smokers who quit, ex-smokers who switched to e-cigarettes, current smokers and never-smokers.
Scott Weaver
Georgia State University, GA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Examine how electronic nicotine delivery system characteristics — device type and design, flavors, and ability to relieve cravings — influence smokers' decisions to start, dual-use or fully substitute, using focus groups with 120 adult smokers.
The school
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences: 1 labs on PI Pages, $16M a year on research, 103 research doctorates a year.
More about Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences
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