About this Research Topic
Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) are chronic and relapsing with devastating personal, societal, and economic consequences. Given SUDs' wide ranging impact, there is a pressing need in advancing our understanding of reliable risk factors, effective prevention strategies, and treatments for SUDs. Generally, neuroimaging-based brain connectivity includes structural connectivity (anatomical links), functional connectivity (defined as statistical dependencies), or effective connectivity (reflecting causal interactions) among different regions within the brain. With fast and constantly evolving techniques, brain connectivity has gained immense potential in identifying neuronal correlates underlying risk factors, preventions, and treatments for SUDs.
This Research Topic aims to gather a comprehensive body of neuroimaging-based brain connectivity research studies to advance and/or consolidate our understanding of the neuronal correlates underlying the vulnerability, pathology, consequences, and treatment of the SUDs. Each study could focus on one or more of these areas (i.e., vulnerability, pathology, etiology, consequences, and treatment).
While all neuroimaging studies investigating SUDs are welcome, the studies focusing on less explored areas or listed below are particularly of interest:
• Brain connectivity studies investigating the treatment of SUDs;
• Studies investigating SUDs using large scale brain connectivity approaches;
• Brain connectivity studies investigating reliable findings in SUDs using more than one imaging datasets;
• Longitudinal studies aiming to separate drug effects from pre-existing factors;
• Brain connectivity studies investigating SUDs using large samples, including using the participants from large datasets such as ENIGMA, human connectome project (HCP), UK Biobank, and Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) project;
• Studies investigating brain signatures of substance use vulnerability in childhood;
• Neuroimaging studies investigating the cardiovascular effects of substance use;
• Studies investigating SUDs through the negatively-reinforced internalizing pathway with depression and anxiety syndromes as risk factors or the consequences of SUDs;
• Neuroimaging studies investigating genetics of addiction using twin samples;
• Neuroimaging studies investigating SUDs using animal samples.
This Research Topic aims to gather a comprehensive body of neuroimaging-based brain connectivity research studies to advance and/or consolidate our understanding of the neuronal correlates underlying the vulnerability, pathology, consequences, and treatment of the SUDs. Each study could focus on one or more of these areas (i.e., vulnerability, pathology, etiology, consequences, and treatment).
While all neuroimaging studies investigating SUDs are welcome, the studies focusing on less explored areas or listed below are particularly of interest:
• Brain connectivity studies investigating the treatment of SUDs;
• Studies investigating SUDs using large scale brain connectivity approaches;
• Brain connectivity studies investigating reliable findings in SUDs using more than one imaging datasets;
• Longitudinal studies aiming to separate drug effects from pre-existing factors;
• Brain connectivity studies investigating SUDs using large samples, including using the participants from large datasets such as ENIGMA, human connectome project (HCP), UK Biobank, and Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) project;
• Studies investigating brain signatures of substance use vulnerability in childhood;
• Neuroimaging studies investigating the cardiovascular effects of substance use;
• Studies investigating SUDs through the negatively-reinforced internalizing pathway with depression and anxiety syndromes as risk factors or the consequences of SUDs;
• Neuroimaging studies investigating genetics of addiction using twin samples;
• Neuroimaging studies investigating SUDs using animal samples.
Keywords: Substance use disorders, Addiction, Neuroimaging, Brain connectivity, Treatment
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
