Renee Martin-Willett
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Psychology·Early-career
Poor sleep and heavy drinking feed each other. Disrupted sleep is one of the strongest drivers of progression to alcohol use disorder (AUD) and of relapse during recovery.
- Fields
Psychology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
- Topics
alcohol use disorder
heavy drinking
sleep disruption
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2031
What they work on
- Test whether cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating cannabis compound, improves sleep in adults who report heavy drinking, using a randomized placebo-controlled trial.
- Test whether CBD reduces alcohol use in heavy-drinking adults compared with placebo within the same randomized trial.
- Explore whether changes in sleep quality explain CBD's effects on drinking, using mediation analysis and multilevel modeling of trial data.
More about the research
Yet past treatments that improved sleep did little for drinking, and treatments for drinking did little for sleep. New sleep treatments with low potential for abuse are needed for people who drink heavily. This project looks to the endocannabinoid system, the body's own cannabis-like signaling network, as a shared pathway that helps control both sleep and reward. Its signaling molecules include anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol.
Why it matters
Alcohol use disorder carries enormous personal and societal costs, and disrupted sleep pushes people toward heavier drinking and relapse. If CBD proves helpful, it could become a low-abuse-risk add-on treatment that improves sleep and supports recovery for adults who drink heavily.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Christian Hopfer
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether 8 weeks of hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD), compared with placebo, reduces THC use, cannabis use disorder symptoms, anxiety and depression in emerging adults who use cannabis regularly, using a randomized trial.
Brittney Browning
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test whether six weeks of 125 mg/day oleoylethanolamide (OEA), an endocannabinoid-like lipid, lowers peripheral inflammation markers IL-6, TNF-alpha, IL-1beta and the bacterial molecule LPS in young adults with alcohol use disorder.
Chad Brummett
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether cannabidiol (CBD, as the FDA-approved drug Epidiolex) taken around surgery reduces opioid use in the 4 weeks after total knee arthroplasty, in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 380 patients.
The school
University of Colorado Boulder: 36 labs on PI Pages, $718M a year on research, 447 research doctorates a year.
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