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Intelligent M & A : navigating the mergers and acquisitions minefield
\"Intelligent M & A is the first book that looks at the full process of a merger or acquisition to identify where business intelligence can improve those odds of a favorable outcome. Using techniques developed by governmental intelligence services and honed by savvy business leaders over the two huge merger waves of the past decade, this book uses a wide range of actual case studies, quotations, and anecdotes to demonstrate how to build success into every phase of the deal. Not just large global corporate mergers, but also small company acquisitions, public sector mergers, and private deals are discussed.\"--Jacket.
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Attention bias modification in drug addiction
A relapse in addiction is often precipitated by heightened attention bias to drug-related cues, underpinned by a subcortically mediated transition to habitual/automatized responding and reduced prefrontal control. Modification of such automatized attention bias is a fundamental, albeit elusive, target for relapse reduction. Here, on a trial-by-trial basis, we used electroencephalography and eye tracking with a task that assessed, in this order, drug cue reactivity, its instructed self-regulation via reappraisal, and the immediate aftereffects on spontaneous (i.e., not instructed and automatized) attention bias. The results show that cognitive reappraisal, a facet of prefrontal control, decreased spontaneous attention bias to drug-related cues in cocaine-addicted individuals, more so in those with less frequent recent use. The results point to the mechanisms underlying the disruption of automatized maladaptive drug-related attention bias in cocaine addiction. These results pave the way for future studies to examine the role of such habit disruption in reducing compulsive drug seeking outside the controlled laboratory environment, with the ultimate goal of developing a readily deployable cognitivebehavioral and personalized intervention for drug addiction.
Journal Article
Trends in Daily Cannabis Use Among Cigarette Smokers: United States, 2002–2014
Objectives. To estimate changes in the prevalence of daily cannabis use among current, former, and never cigarette smokers from 2002 to 2014 in the United States. Methods. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health is a nationally representative cross-sectional study conducted annually among persons aged 12 years and older in the United States. Results. Daily cannabis use occurs nearly exclusively among nondaily and daily cigarette smokers compared with former and never smokers (8.03%, 9.01%, 2.79%, 1.05%, respectively). Daily cannabis use increased over the past decade among both nondaily (8.03% [2014] vs 2.85% [2002]; linear trend P < .001) and daily smokers (9.01% [2014]; 4.92% [2002]; linear trend P < .001). Daily cannabis use increased most rapidly among former cigarette smokers (2.79% [2014] vs 0.98% [2002]; linear trend P < .001). Conclusions. Daily cannabis use occurs predominantly among cigarette smokers in the United States. Daily cannabis use increased among current, former, and never smokers over the past decade, with particularly rapid increases among youth and female cigarette smokers. Future research is needed to monitor the observed increase in daily cannabis use, especially among youths and adults who smoke cigarettes.
Journal Article
Behavioral preference for viewing drug v. pleasant images predicts current and future opioid misuse among chronic pain patients
The USA is currently enduring an opioid crisis. Identifying cost-effective, easy-to-implement behavioral measures that predict treatment outcomes in opioid misusers is a crucial scientific, therapeutic, and epidemiological goal.
The current study used a mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal design to test whether a behavioral choice task, previously validated in stimulant users, was associated with increased opioid misuse severity at baseline, and whether it predicted change in opioid misuse severity at follow-up. At baseline, data from 100 prescription opioid-treated chronic pain patients were analyzed; at follow-up, data were analyzed in 34 of these participants who were non-misusers at baseline. During the choice task, participants chose under probabilistic contingencies whether to view opioid-related images in comparison with affectively pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral images. Following previous procedures, we also assessed insight into choice behavior, operationalized as whether (yes/no) participants correctly self-reported the image category they chose most often.
At baseline, the higher choice for viewing opioid images in direct comparison with pleasant images was associated with opioid misuse and impaired insight into choice behavior; the combination of these produced especially elevated opioid-related choice behavior. In longitudinal analyses of individuals who were initially non-misusers, higher baseline opioid v. pleasant choice behavior predicted more opioid misuse behaviors at follow-up.
These results indicate that greater relative allocation of behavior toward opioid stimuli and away from stimuli depicting natural reinforcement is associated with concurrent opioid misuse and portends vulnerability toward future misuse. The choice task may provide important medical information to guide opioid-prescribing practices.
Journal Article
Trait anger modulates neural activity in the fronto-parietal attention network
Anger is considered a unique high-arousal and approach-related negative emotion. The influence of individual differences in trait anger on the processing of visual stimuli is relevant to questions about emotional processing and remains to be explored. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we explored the neural responses to standardized images, selected based on valence and arousal ratings in a group of men with high trait anger compared to those with normative to low anger scores (controls). Results show increased activation in the left-lateralized ventral fronto-parietal attention network to unpleasant images by individuals with high trait anger. There was also a group by arousal interaction in the left thalamus/pulvinar such that individuals with high trait anger had increased pulvinar activation to the high-arousal (versus low arousal) unpleasant images as compared to controls. Thus, individual differences in trait anger in men are associated with brain regions subserving executive attentional and sensory integration during the processing of unpleasant emotional stimuli, particularly to high arousal images.
Journal Article
Kappa opioid receptor availability predicts severity of anhedonia in schizophrenia
The kappa opioid receptor (KOR) and its endogenous agonist dynorphin have been implicated in multiple psychiatric conditions including psychotic disorders. We tested the hypotheses that kappa expression is elevated and associated with psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia. We measured kappa expression in unmedicated patients with schizophrenia (7 female, 6 male) and matched controls (7 female, 6 male) with positron emission tomography (PET). We also acquired a measurement of cumulative dopamine activity over the life span in the same subjects using neuromelanin sensitive MRI. We hypothesized that neuromelanin accumulation would be higher in patients than controls and that in patients there would be a positive association between KOR availability and neuromelanin accumulation. Fourteen patients and thirteen controls were enrolled. Whole brain dynamic PET imaging data using the KOR selective tracer [
18
F]LY245998 were acquired. Distribution volume (
V
T
) was measured with region of interest analysis in 14 brain regions. Neuromelanin accumulation in midbrain dopaminergic nuclei was assessed in the same subjects. Positive and negative symptoms were measured by a clinical psychologist. We did not observe group level differences in KOR expression, neuromelanin accumulation or relationships of these to positive symptoms. Unexpectedly, we did observe strong positive associations between KOR expression and symptoms of anhedonia in the patients (Pearson
r
> 0.7, uncorrected
p
< 0.01 in 8 cortical brain regions). We also observed moderate associations between KOR expression and neuromelanin levels in patients. In conclusion, we did not observe a relationship between kappa and symptoms of psychosis but the observed relationship to the negative symptom of anhedonia is in line with recent work testing kappa antagonism as a therapy for anhedonia in depression.
Journal Article
Whole-brain resting-state connectivity underlying impaired inhibitory control during early versus longer-term abstinence in cocaine addiction
Lapses in inhibitory control have been linked to relapse in human drug addiction. Evidence suggests differences in inhibitory control depending on abstinence duration, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unknown. We hypothesized that early abstinence (2–5 days) would be characterized by the strongest impairments of inhibitory control and most wide-spread deviations in resting-state functional connectivity of brain networks, while longer-term abstinence (>30 days) would be characterized by weaker impairments as compared to healthy controls. In this laboratory-based cross-sectional study, we compared individuals with Cocaine Use Disorder (iCUD) during early (cocaine urine-positive:
N
= 19, iCUD+; 32% female; mean age: 46.8 years) and longer-term abstinence (cocaine urine-negative:
N
= 29, iCUD−; 15% female; mean age: 46.6 years) to healthy controls (
N
= 33; 24% female; mean age: 40.9 years). We compared the groups on inhibitory control performance (Stop-Signal Task) and, using a whole-brain graph theory analysis (638 region parcellation) of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, we tested for group differences in resting-state brain function (local/global efficiency). We characterized how resting-state brain function was associated with inhibitory control performance within iCUD. Inhibitory control performance was worst in the early abstinence group, and intermediate in the longer-term abstinence group, as compared to the healthy control group (
P
< 0.01). More recent use of cocaine (CUD+ > CUD− > healthy controls) was characterized by decreased efficiency in fronto-temporal and subcortical networks (primarily in the
salience, semantic, and basal ganglia
networks) and increased efficiency in
visual
networks. Importantly, a similar functional connectivity pattern characterized impaired inhibitory control performance within iCUD (all brain analyses
P
< 0.05, FWE-corrected). Together, we demonstrated that a similar pattern of systematic and widespread deviations in resting-state brain efficiency, extending beyond the networks commonly investigated in human drug addiction, is linked to both abstinence duration and inhibitory control deficits in iCUD.
Journal Article
Abstinence reverses EEG-indexed attention bias between drug-related and pleasant stimuli in cocaine-addicted individuals
Increased attention bias toward drug-related cues over non–drug-related intrinsically pleasant reinforcers is a hallmark of drug addiction. In this study we used the late positive potential (LPP) to investigate whether such increased attention bias toward drug-related relative to non–drug-related cues changes over a protracted period of reduced drug use in treatment-seeking individuals with a cocaine use disorder (CUD).
Treatment-seeking individuals with CUD and matched healthy controls passively viewed a series of pleasant, neutral and drug-related pictures while their event-related potentials were recorded at baseline (≤ 3 weeks after treatment initiation) and at 6-month follow-up (only CUD).
We included 19 treatment-seeking individuals with CUD and 18 matched controls in our analyses. The results showed a reversal in attention bias (i.e., LPP amplitude) from baseline (i.e., drug > pleasant) to follow-up (i.e., pleasant > drug) driven by an increased attentional engagement with pleasant pictures; this LPP reversal was paralleled by a concomitant reduction in self-reported wanting and craving for cocaine in the CUD group. Furthermore, reduced attention bias toward drug-related cues (relative to pleasant cues) was correlated with longer duration of abstinence at baseline, and the extent of its longitudinal reversal was correlated with decreased craving at follow-up, providing support for abstinence as a putative mechanism of this bottom–up attentional change.
A limited sample size and the use of the same set of pictures at baseline and follow-up were the major limitations of this study.
Results collectively indicate that, by tracking with drug abstinence, LPP in response to drug-related relative to pleasant cues may serve as an indicator of clinical progress in treatment-seeking individuals with CUD.
Journal Article
Low Striatal Dopamine D2-type Receptor Availability is Linked to Simulated Drug Choice in Methamphetamine Users
Individuals with drug use disorders seek drugs over other rewarding activities, and exhibit neurochemical deficits related to dopamine, which is involved in value-based learning and decision-making. Thus, a dopaminergic disturbance may underpin drug-biased choice in addiction. Classical drug-choice assessments, which offer drug-consumption opportunities, are inappropriate for addicted individuals seeking treatment or abstaining. Fifteen recently abstinent methamphetamine users and 15 healthy controls completed two laboratory paradigms of 'simulated' drug choice (choice for drug-related vs affectively pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral images), and underwent positron emission tomography measurements of dopamine D2-type receptor availability, indicated by binding potential (BPND ) for [18 F]fallypride. Thirteen of the methamphetamine users and 10 controls also underwent [11 C]NNC112 PET scans to measure dopamine D1-type receptor availability. Group analyses showed that, compared with controls, methamphetamine users chose to view more methamphetamine-related images on one task, with a similar trend on the second task. Regression analyses showed that, on both tasks, the more methamphetamine users chose to view methamphetamine images, specifically vs pleasant images (the most frequently chosen images across all participants), the lower was their D2-type BPND in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, an important region in value-based choice. No associations were observed with D2-type BPND in striatal regions, or with D1-type BPND in any region. These results identify a neurochemical correlate for a laboratory drug-seeking paradigm that can be administered to treatment-seeking and abstaining drug-addicted individuals. More broadly, these results refine the central hypothesis that dopamine-system deficits contribute to drug-biased decision-making in addiction, here showing a role for the orbitofrontal cortex.
Journal Article
Human Cognitive Ability Is Modulated by Aromatase Availability in the Brain in a Sex-Specific Manner
The enzyme aromatase catalyzes the final step in estrogen biosynthesis, converting testosterone to estradiol, and is expressed in the brain of all mammals. Estrogens are thought to be important for maintenance of cognitive function in women, whereas testosterone is thought to modulate cognitive abilities in men. Here we compare differences in cognitive performance in relation to brain aromatase availability in healthy men and women. Twenty-seven healthy participants were administered tests of verbal learning and memory and perceptual/abstract reasoning. In-vivo images of brain aromatase availability were acquired in this sample using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) with the validated aromatase radiotracer [11C]vorozole. Regions of interest were placed bilaterally on the amygdala and thalamus where aromatase availability is highest in the human brain. Though cognitive performance and aromatase availability did not differ as a function of sex, higher availability of aromatase in the amygdala was associated with lower cognitive performance in men. No such relationship was found in women; and the corresponding regression slopes were significantly different between the sexes. Thalamic aromatase availability was not significantly correlated with cognitive performance in either sex. These findings suggest that the effects of brain aromatase on cognitive performance are both region- and sex-specific, and may explain some of the normal variance seen in verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities in men and women as well as sex differences in the trajectory of cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Journal Article