Psychological Sciences Events Home | Distinguished Lecture Series in Psychology | Eisenberg Lecture

Impulsive, Dysregulated, and Addictive Behaviors

Adolescence: Neurobehavioral Characteristics, Differential Alcohol Sensitivities, and Intake

Linda SpearDr. Linda Spear
Distinguished Professor
Department of Psychology and Center for Development and Behavioral Neuroscience, State University of New York Binghamton

October 20, 2011
3:30 to 5:00 pm

Jesse Wrench Auditorium, Memorial Union
map, parking and directions

Free and open to the public
lecture flyer (pdf)

Adolescence is characterized by a variety of hormonal, neural, and behavioral alterations across a variety of mammalian species. Adolescent rats, like their human counterparts, often exhibit elevations in peer-directed social interactions, impulsivity, novelty seeking, and alcohol and drug use relative to adults. The available data hint at similar age-related alcohol sensitivities among human adolescents as well. Attenuated aversive and enhanced rewarding properties of alcohol and other drugs may serve to permit and promote high levels of drug/alcohol use during adolescence that may set the stage for the development of problematic patterns of use and the emergence of abuse disorders.

Linda Spear is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Binghamton University. Spear has served as president of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology, and the Neurobehavioral Teratology Society. She has served on the external advisory boards and study sections of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and she is currently on the NIAAA National Advisory Council. She is director of the Developmental Exposure to Alcohol Research Center. Spear has about 250 research publications and a book published in 2010, The Behavioral Neuroscience of Adolescence. She was the 2005 recipient of the Keller Award, for significant and long-term contributions to the study of alcohol abuse and alcoholism.

Suggested Readings

Spear, L. P. (2011). Adolescent neurobehavioral characteristics, alcohol sensitivities, and intake: setting the stage for alcohol use disorders? /Child Development Perspectives. /DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00182.x

Spear, L. P. (2011). Alcohol and the developing brain. In Saunders, J. B. and J. M. Rey (Eds), /Young People and Alcohol: Impact, Policy, Prevention, Treatment. /Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Sponsored by generous contributions from The Grimshaw Distinguished Lecture Series in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Bond Life Sciences Center; the Center for Translational Neuroscience; the College of Human Environmental Sciences; the Honors College; the Department of Communication; the Department of Education, School, and Counseling Psychology; the Department of Management; the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences; the Department of Philosophy; the Department of Psychological Sciences Colloquium Fund; the College of Education; The Fred McKinney Psychology Lectureship; the Life Sciences and Society Program; The Melvin H. and Kathleen Marx Experimental Psychology Fund; the School of Medicine; the School of Social Work; the School of Journalism; the Department of Anthropology; and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Distinguished Lecture Series Contact:
Kelly Davis, Department of Psychological Science
573-884-6277, daviskel@missouri.edu