Brandon Oberlin
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Psychology
People trying to recover from heavy drinking often relapse within the first six months. One reason may be how the brain weighs time: a hallmark of alcohol use disorder is a strong pull toward rewards available right now and difficulty picturing or planning for a distant future.
- Fields
Psychology
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
alcohol use disorder
addiction recovery
relapse prevention
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Test whether 30 daily virtual reality encounters with digitally age-progressed Future Selves improve abstinence and alcohol use outcomes at 1 and 6 months in people in early recovery from alcohol use disorder, compared with a virtual reality control condition.
- Measure whether the intervention increases future self-similarity, how closely participants identify with their future selves, and shifts behavioral delay-of-reward preference away from immediate rewards.
- Demonstrate brain target engagement by testing for stronger executive and introspective network function during decision-making and at rest, and for executive network connectivity that correlates with increased delayed reward preference.
- Establish that the aged Future Selves representing divergent futures are the active ingredient of the intervention, and evaluate brain activation as a predictive marker of who responds.
More about the research
If that tilt toward the immediate is part of what sustains the disorder, then making the future feel vivid and personally real might change behavior. This project tests that idea with a virtual reality experience in which people meet themselves years from now.
Why it matters
Most attempts to recover from alcohol use disorder fail within six months, leaving substantial room for better support. If this virtual reality experience increases abstinence, strengthens connection to one's future self, and reduces impulsive choice, it could become a recovery support tool that is practical to deliver in treatment settings. Measuring brain responses may also yield a marker that identifies in advance which patients are likely to benefit.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Eduardo Gallo
Fordham University, NY·Neuroscience
Test whether dopamine D2 receptors on cholinergic interneurons of the nucleus accumbens control impulsive choice, by using cell type-specific genetic tools in mice to both increase and decrease receptor levels and measuring performance on a delay discounting task.
Laura Martin
University of Kansas, KS·Psychology
Test whether brief guided imagery using positive affect imagery (PAI) engages the brain's reward system and builds positive associations with exercise in mid-life adults.
William Mellick
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether parents with alcohol use disorder plus bipolar disorder and their unaffected teens show stronger brain responses to reward than AUD-only families, using fMRI during social reward and decision-making tasks.
The school
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis: 25 labs on PI Pages, $89M a year on research, 120 research doctorates a year.
More about Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis
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