# The effects of exposure to violence on risk for substance abuse: neural mechanisms and community level moderators

> **NIH NIH R01** · OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $739,195

## Abstract

Project Summary
Each year, up to 40% of adolescents witness or experience an assault in their community. The stress of such
exposures to violence (EtV) greatly increases the probability of initiating use of illicit drugs as well as becoming
addicted to them. This proposal tests the hypothesis that the stress of EtV recalibrates the neural processes
underlying emotional reactivity and regulation, which leads to changes in affect reactivity, risk-taking, and
working memory. These psychological changes, either independently or in concert, lead to increased risk for
the initiation and escalation of substance use. We also hypothesize that the degree to which EtV elicits these
changes in brain and behavior is highly dependent on the environmental context in which EtV occurs and
therefore moderated by community level factors (e.g. collective efficacy; neighborhood economic
disadvantage) as well as more traditionally measured psychological factors. To test this multi-system model of
EtV's effects on substance use, we will recruit from our ongoing, longitudinal developmental study of 1500
adolescents in Franklin County, OH, a subsample (n=600) that will continue (at years 2 and 5; 4 total time
points) these ecological momentary assessment (EMA), global positioning (GPS), and interview assessments
of spatial exposures to EtV and substance use (including objective head hair measures). At 2 additional time
points (years 1 and 4), youths will complete a comprehensive neuroimaging battery that includes
measurements of brain structure, resting state activity, and neural activity during 4 well-validated
neurocognitive tasks that probe the processes hypothesized to be affected by EtV and associated with
increased risk for substance use: (1) risk-taking behavior; (2) reward sensitivity; (3) threat reactivity; and (4)
working memory. In support of our theory linking EtV to substance use, each of these tasks has been shown to
be impacted by stressful experiences like EtV as well as altered by regular substance use. Targeted
recruitment from the parent study will enhance the proportion of youths who have already used illicit
substances as well as experienced EtV. Aim 1 determines the independent effects of EtV and substance use
on longitudinal changes in neural structure and function as well as cross-sectional differences. Aim 2
determines the degree to which neural activity predicts future substance use. Aim 3 evaluates the degree to
which community resilience and risk factors moderate these changes in neural function and structure. Example
moderators include neighborhood and activity space exposures (e.g. collective efficacy, violence levels), family
social processes and resources (e.g. parental monitoring, poverty), and life history (early childhood adversity)
factors. With a longitudinal design, we will be able to determine the temporal ordering of how these risk and
resilience factors modify the trajectory of neural changes resulting from EtV, which will provide...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10304875
- **Project number:** 5R01DA042080-05
- **Recipient organization:** OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Baldwin M Way
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $739,195
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-04-01 → 2024-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10304875

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10304875, The effects of exposure to violence on risk for substance abuse: neural mechanisms and community level moderators (5R01DA042080-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10304875. Licensed CC0.

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