Monitoring the Future (MTF) is an ongoing research program conducted at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research under a series of investigator-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse beginning in 1975. The integrated MTF study includes annual surveys of nationally-representative samples of 8th, 10th,…

Drugs of abuse cause changes in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and associated regions that impair inhibitory control over drug-seeking. Breaking the contingencies between drug-associated cues and the delivery of the reward during extinction learning reduces rates of relapse. Here we used vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) to induce targeted synaptic…

Research shows that various pharmaceuticals can offer modest cognition enhancing effects for healthy individuals. These finding have caused some academics to support liberal use of pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) in schools and universities. This approach partially arises from arguments implying there is little moral justification for…

Presents research which indicates that alcohol education efforts based on a "knowledge-attitude-behavior" model can be effective in reducing alcohol problems. Summarizes essential requirements of effective alcohol education. (RC)

Determined the effectiveness of a voluntary educational program on the drinking attitudes and behaviors of college students (N=1,000). Survey results revealed that for those subjects who participated in the program, there was a significant improvement in their drinking attitudes and behaviors. (Author/RC)

This paper is a companion to the book, "Smoking, Drinking, and Drug Use in Young Adulthood: The Impacts of New Freedoms and New Responsibilities," by Bachman, Wadsworth, O'Malley, Johnston, and Schulenberg (1997). The book attempts to disentangle the effects of post-high school roles on drug use by conducting a variety of analyses on…

This book focuses on transitions into young adulthood by examining key roles and experiences of young adults and how they relate to changes in drug use. The findings are based on the nationwide Monitoring the Future project, and represent the majority of individuals who entered young adulthood in the United States during the years 1976 through…

This paper presents information from the ongoing research program, Monitoring the Future. The program is designed to: (1) monitor drug use and potential explanatory factors among American secondary school students, and other young adults; (2) distinguish which of three different kinds of change--maturational, historical, and/or cohort are…