DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION MESSAGES: IMPACT WITH SENSATION SEEKING YOUTH Lewis Donohew 1, Philip Palmgreen 1, Jane Joseph 2, Thomas Kelly 3 and Michael Bardo 4 1 Dept Communication, 2 Dept Anatomy & Neurobiology, 3 Dept Behavioral Science and 4 Dept Psychology and Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation (CDART) University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY Introduction It has long been established that individuals who are high sensation seekers are more likely to engage in drug use, risky sex, and other behaviors which can endanger their health. Such persons have provided a challenge for those conducting prevention campaigns intended to reduce these behaviors and may account for the high failure rate of earlier prevention efforts. In particular, vulnerability to drug abuse is known to be related to sensation seeking. Sensation seeking is a personality trait defined by Zuckerman as the general need for novel and complex experiences, including a willingness to take risks for these experiences. High sensation seekers have consistently been shown to use and abuse drugs more often than low sensation seekers when assessed across various populations. In controlled laboratory studies, high sensation seekers are also known to be more sensitive than low sensation seekers to the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse. The association between sensation seeking and drug use has led investigators to develop more effective anti-drug prevention messages that specifically target high sensation seekers. In recent years, compelling evidence has been offered that persuasive messages with novel components can attract and hold the attention of this prime target audience and bring about significant behavior change. Work from our center has offered neurobiological support for this approach. We and others have proposed that exposure to novelty activates, at least in part, the same neural substrate that mediates the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse and that individual differences in response to novelty and drugs of abuse may relate to individual differences in the mesolimbic dopamine system of the brain. In this poster, we describe some of the research mentioned above and its implications for communication and prevention, including neuroimaging evidence that high and low sensation seekers differ in their biological predisposition to respond to emotionally arousing visual information. The research reported here has been conducted within a framework of prevention, funded primarily by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. A long-term objective of our center is to translate basic research findings to inform the design of biologically-relevant prevention intervention strategies that can be evaluated in the field. To the extent that sensation seeking is an antecedent predictor of drug use and abuse, this information can be used to target individuals who are high in sensation seeking, as well as to tailor the design of prevention interventions that specifically engage at-risk individuals M '96 JJASONDJ '97 FMAMJJASONDJ '98 FMAMJJASOND HSSLSS M '96 JJASOND J '97 FMAMJJASOND J '98 FMAMJJASOND HSSLSS Fayette Campaign 1 Fayette Campaign 1 Fayette Campaign 2 Knox Campaign Fayette Campaign 2 Knox Campaign Fayette County Knox County % Using Marijuana Past 30 Days MONTH Study 1 In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of targeted televised public service announcement campaigns in reducing marijuana use among high- sensation seeking adolescents.The study used a controlled interrupted time- series design in two matched communities (Knoxville TN and Lexington, KY). Two televised anti-marijuana campaigns were conducted in one county (Lexington) and one campaign in the comparison community (Knoxville). The televised public service announcements were produced to appeal specifically to high sensation seekers based on formative research. Personal interviews were conducted with 100 randomly-selected teenagers monthly in each county for 32 months. As shown in the figure below, all three campaigns (one in Knoxville, as shown in upper panel, and two in Lexington, as shown in lower panel) reversed upward development trends in 30-day marijuana use among high-sensation seekers (P< 0.01). As expected, low sensation seekers had low use levels, and no campaign effects were evident AMJJASONDJFMAMJJASONDJFMAMJJASONDJFMAMJJASONDJFM ? ■ HSS ● LSS Marijuana Initiative Campaign Period 30-day marijuana use regression plots for high sensation-seeking (HSS) and low sensation-seeking (LSS) youth Study 2 In this study, we evaluated effects of the Marijuana Initiative portion of the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign on high and low sensation seeking adolescents. Personal interviews were conducted via laptop with independent monthly random samples of 100 youth from the same age cohort in each of two moderate size communities over 48 months of the campaign, including the critical first six months of the 9-month Initiative. The start of the Initiative was treated as an “interruption” in time-series analyses of the combined community sample. As shown in the figure below, the Marijuana Initiative reversed upward developmental trends in high sensation seekers’ 30-day marijuana use (P<.001) and significantly reduced positive marijuana attitudes and beliefs in this at-risk population. Control substances were not affected. As expected, low sensation seekers had low marijuana use levels, and no campaign effects were detected. Other analyses indicated that the Initiative’s dramatic depiction of negative consequences of marijuana use was principally responsible for its effects on high sensation seekers. SELECTED READINGS Bardo, M. T., Donohew, R. L. and Harrington, N. G. (1996) Psychobiology of novelty seeking and drug seeking behavior. Behavioural Brain Research. 77, Donohew, L. (2006). Media, sensation seeking, and prevention. In Margarete Vollrath (ed.). Handbook of Personality and Health. London: Wiley. Donohew, L., Bardo, M. T., & Zimmerman, R.S. (2004). Personality and risky behavior: communication and prevention. In R. Stelmack, ed., On the psychobiology of personality: Essays in honor of Marvin Zuckerman, pp London: Elsevier. Donohew, L., Lorch, E.P., & Palmgreen, P. (1998). Applications of a theoretic Model of Information Exposure to Health Interventions. Human Communication Research,24 (3) Kelly, T. H., Delzer, T. A., Martin, C. A., Harrington, N. G., Hays, L. R. and Bardo, M. T. (in press). Behavioral effects of d- amphetamine and diazepam in high and low sensation seekers. Psychopharmacology. Palmgreen, P.& Donohew, L. (2003). Effective mass media strategies for drug abuse prevention campaigns. In Handbook of drug abuse theory, science and practice. Bukoski and and Z. Sloboda (Eds.) New York: Plenum. Palmgreen, P., Donohew, L., Lorch, E., Hoyle, R., & Stephenson, M. (2001). Television campaigns and adolescent marijuana use: Tests of sensation seeking targeting. American Journal of Public Health, 91, Palmgreen, P., Lorch, E.P., Stephenson, M., Donohew, L., & Hoyle, R., (in press). Effects of ONDCP’s Marijuana Initiative Campaign on high sensation-seeking youth, American Journal of Public Health. Wills, T. A., Vaccaro, D. and McNamara, G. (1994). Novelty seeking, risk taking, and related constructs as predictors of adolescent substance abuse: an application of Cloninger’s theory. Journal of Substance Abuse 6, Zuckerman, M. Sensation seeking: beyond the optimal level of arousal. (1979). Erlbaum, Hillsdale CA. Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral expressions and biosocial bases of sensation seeking. Cambridge, Cambridge UK. CONCLUSIONS Televised anti-drug campaigns with high reach and frequency that use public service announcements designed for and targeted at high-sensation seeking adolescents can significantly reduce substance use in this high- risk population (Study 1). Substance use prevention campaigns can be effective within an approach utilizing dramatic negative consequence messages targeted to high sensation seekers (Study 2). In a controlled laboratory setting, high sensation seekers exposed to high arousing visual stimuli show greater activation of limbic brain structures compared to low sensation seekers (Study 3). Taken together, these studies suggest that more effective anti-drug messages may be developed when they employ stimulus materials that maximally impact at-risk individuals as shown in neuroimaging experiments. High > Low Arousal pictures (p <.01) High Sensation SeekersLow Sensation Seekers Study 3 Given the differential response to the public service announcements, Study 3 assessed the hypothesis that high sensation seekers may attend more to the public service announcement than low sensation seekers because they are biologically predisposed to show a greater response to visually presented arousing stimuli. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was conducted using a Siemens Trio 3.0 Tesla magnet to collect functional brain images. A state-of-the-art 8-channel head coil was used to enhance signal resolution and optimize measurement of subcortical brain regions, including the hippocampus, nucleus accumbens and amygdala. Paid volunteers who were classified as either high or low sensation seekers were assessed in an emotional induction task. Brain images were collected while participants viewed photographs from the International Affective Picture Set, with half of the pictures being classified as high arousal and half being classified as low arousal. Results from this neuroimaging experiment indicated that among both high and low sensation seekers, the high arousal pictures induced more extensive brain activation compared with low arousal pictures, especially in limbic structures. More important, however, as shown in the figure below, limbic structures were more extensively activated in high sensation seekers than in low sensation seekers. In particular, the right amygdala (yellow arrow), the right insula (pink arrow) and left medial orbito-frontal cortex were more extensively activated in the high sensation seekers. These neuroimaging results indicate that neurobiological markers of emotional reactions to visual stimuli are different between high and low sensation seekers. DA 05312, DA and DA National Institute on Drug Abuse · National Institutes of Health ■ HSS ● LSS % Using Marijuana in Past 30 Days