Addiction Related Content

Opioid Addiction: Exploring Scientific Solutions

The ultimate solution to the opioid crisis is answering the question of what causes addiction and whether it is possible to treat it more effectively or even prevent it. That’s the challenge Elena H. Chartoff, PhD, is taking on in her laboratory. As director of the Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior...

On the Front Line of the Opioid Crisis

It was a problem we never used to speak about, something that afflicted those “down on their luck” or residents of “skid row” who could not cope with their lives. They dealt with those challenges with alcohol and drug misuse, the drug of choice frequently heroin. Today, addiction—particularly to...

Program Newsletters Educate Staff and Streamline Communication

Staff at the Alcohol, Drug, and Addiction Inpatient Program have noticed a significant drop in emails from Christopher A. Richard, BSN, RN, the nurse manager for the program. That’s because about a year and a half ago, Richard began publishing a two-page weekly newsletter chock full of timely...

McLean’s Integrated Group Therapy App Wins Innovation Challenge

A team from McLean Hospital won this year’s Partners Connected Health Innovation Challenge (CHIC) for a proposal to create a digital platform that brings integrated group therapy (IGT) to individuals with co-occurring mood disorders and addiction to drugs or alcohol. The team, which competed against...

Staff Profile: Roger D. Weiss, MD

Dr. Weiss’ career has focused on treatment and clinical research with substance-dependent patients. He has received numerous NIH grants, including for developing integrated group therapy, an evidence-based treatment for co-occurring bipolar and substance use disorders, and leading a multi-site...

Staff Profile: Shelly F. Greenfield, MD, MPH

Shelly F. Greenfield, MD, MPH, is an addiction psychiatrist, clinician, and researcher. She serves as principal and co-investigator on federally funded research focusing on substance use disorders treatment, gender differences, and substance health services. She received a National Institute on Drug...

Staff Profile: Scott E. Lukas, PhD

Scott E. Lukas received his PhD in pharmacology and toxicology in 1979 from the University of Maryland. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, he joined NIDA Addiction Research Center for 18 months before moving to McLean in 1984. Promoted to professor in 2003, Dr. Lukas...

Staff Profile: Staci Gruber, PhD

Staci Gruber, PhD, is the director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Core and the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) program at McLean Hospital. She is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the application of...

Staff Profile: Hilary S. Connery, MD, PhD

Hilary S. Connery, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and serves as the clinical director for McLean Hospital’s Division of Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction. Dr. Connery’s expertise includes treatment of opioid use disorders and integrated treatments for co...

Staff Profile: Miles Cunningham, MD, PhD

Miles G. Cunningham, MD, PhD, earned a PhD in 1993 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in “Transplantation Strategies for the Analysis of Brain Development and Repair.” He earned an MD in 1995 from Harvard Medical School, with a special interest in neuropsychiatry and behavioral...

Staff Profile: Marc L. Copersino, PhD, ABPP-CP

Marc L. Copersino, PhD, ABPP-CP, is affiliated with the Division of Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction and works collaboratively with members of the McLean Imaging Center. He conducts patient-oriented research focusing on the clinical neuroscience and treatment of substance use disorders (SUD) in two...

Staff Profile: Bill Carlezon, PhD

Bill Carlezon, PhD, has received several awards for his research, including an Independent Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from George W. Bush, and the Jacob...

Staff Profile: Harrison G. Pope, MD, MPH

Harrison G. Pope, MD, MPH, has conducted research in a wide range of areas in psychiatry and has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed papers. This work includes many publications on the diagnosis and treatment of psychotic disorders and major mood disorders, together with extensive research on...

Staff Profile: Margaret Griffin, PhD

As a medical sociologist at McLean Hospital since 1983, Dr. Griffin has focused primarily on clinical research in addiction, with the goal of disseminating findings to clinicians not involved in research. For example, her paper on gender differences in recovery from cocaine addiction has been widely...

Staff Profile: Stephen J. Kohut, PhD

Stephen J. Kohut, PhD, focuses his research primarily on two main interacting lines of investigation: understanding how alterations in underlying neurobiology alter behavioral responses to drugs, especially stimulants and opioids, and medications discovery for drug misuse and addiction. Dr. Kohut’s...

Staff Profile: Carol A. Paronis, PhD

Carol A. Paronis, PhD, is director of the Laboratory of Preclinical Pharmacology at McLean Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Paronis received her PhD in pharmacology from Emory University and completed post-doctoral fellowships in pharmacology at the...

Staff Profile: Brian D. Kangas, PhD

Brian D. Kangas, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Translational Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory at McLean Hospital. He first studied behavioral pharmacology while completing his PhD under the direction of Dr. Marc Branch at the University...

Staff Profile: Lisa D. Nickerson, PhD

Lisa D. Nickerson, PhD, centers her research on the application of multivariate statistical methods, data fusion, and machine learning techniques to neuroimaging data to investigate problems of addiction. Her present work involves using these state of the art analysis methods to combine multimodal...

Staff Profile: Olivera J. Bogunovic, MD

Olivera J. Bogunovic, MD, is the medical director of McLean’s Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction Outpatient Program at McLean Hospital. She divides her time between clinical and administrative and teaching activities, which include teaching medical students and residents as well as addiction and...