Public Lecture
The availability and usage of digital technologies have changed rapidly, generating new psychiatric concerns that may relate to specific groups differently. In this presentation, current advances in understanding specific types and patterns of internet use in the context of psychiatric concerns will be presented, considering individual differences and brain-behavior relationships. Dr. Potenza will provide a theoretical framework for considering behavioral addictions, drawing on proposed models such as the Interaction of Person, Affect, Cognition and Execution (I-PACE) model. He will present data from multiple sources including from work of an international Lancet Psychiatry Commission on Problematic Usage of the Internet (PUI), a World Health Organization workgroup developing screening and assessment instruments applicable across jurisdictions and large-scale studies including the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD), a longitudinal study of over 11,000 developing youth. In his presentation, Dr. Potenza will present on these international activities and how gender/sex relate to engagement in types and patterns of internet use. He will present on the rise of online sports gambling and how youth and young adults, especially males, may be impacted. He will present on individual differences relating to youth engagement in social media, including new data on how online social activities relate to subsequent ADHD symptomatology and not vice versa, especially for girls. How to identify and treat different types of PUI will be considered, as will novel digital interventions.
Dr. Potenza is a board-certified psychiatrist with sub-specialty training in addiction psychiatry. Currently, he is the Steven M. Southwick Professor of Psychiatry, Child Study and Neuroscience at the Yale University School of Medicine where he is the Director of the Division of Addiction Research, the Problem Gambling Clinic, the Center of Excellence in Gambling Research, the Women and Addictive Disorders Core of Women's Health Research at Yale and the Yale Research Program on Impulsivity and Impulse Control Disorders.
Dr. Potenza is on the editorial boards of fifteen journals (including editor-in-chief of Current Addiction Reports) and has received multiple national and international awards for excellence in research and clinical care. He has consulted to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Registry of Effective Programs, National Institutes of Health, American Psychiatric Association and World Health Organization (WHO) on matters of addiction. He has participated in DSM-5 research work groups and annual WHO meetings relating to Internet use and addictive behaviors in the ICD-11, addressing topics relating to gambling, gaming, problematic usage of the internet and impulse control, and addiction.
Dr. Potenza's research has focused on the neurobiology and treatment of substance and non-substance (behavioral) addictions and other disorders characterized by impaired impulse control and reward-related motivations. The majority of this work has focused on understanding clinical and neurobiological underpinnings of these disorders, and their co-occurrences with other mental health disorders, in order to advance prevention and treatment strategies. Dr. Potenza's research has applied brain imaging, genetic, epidemiological and clinical trials methodologies to gain knowledge and improve prevention and treatment strategies for addictive disorders. He has mentored over 300 individuals at varying stages of training and has authored over 1000 publications.
