Volume 38 · Number 11
NOVEMBER 2008

Challenges in Comorbidity

By Barbara J. Mason, PhD

Approximately 10% of U.S. adults meet the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV), criteria for a current alcohol or illicit drug use disorder. The presence of an alcohol or illicit drug use disorder doubles the risk of a concurrent independent anxiety disorder, is associated with 2.5 times greater risk of a concurrent independent major depression, and quadruples the risk of mania. Similarly, the presence of mood and anxiety disorders confer increased risk for substance use disorders.

ABOUT THE GUEST EDITORS

Barbara J. Mason, PhD, is The Pearson Family Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Clinical Psychopharmacology in the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California. Dr. Mason began her career as a member of the faculty of Cornell University Medical College where she initiated a program of clinical research funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), with a focus on investigating treatment of comorbid depression and alcohol dependence. Moving to the University of Miami School of Medicine, Dr. Mason investigated nalmefene as a novel treatment of alcohol dependence and served as overall principal investigator for the first U.S. study of acamprosate, which was conducted in support of Food and Drug Administration approval of acamprosate (Campral) as a novel treatment of alcohol dependence.

Dr. Mason is currently pursuing a program of National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research that includes human laboratory studies to screen potential relapse prevention medications and early phase clinical trials to evaluate the safety and efficacy of novel medications to prevent relapse in outpatients with alcohol or cannabis dependence. She initiated a Translational Center on the Clinical Neurobiology of Cannabis Addiction funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which is dedicated to studying the neurobiology of cannabis dependence in teenagers and young adults. Dr. Mason’s work has been recognized with a Merit Award from NIH, the Dean’s Senior Clinical Research Award from the University of Miami School of Medicine, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Teacher-Scientist Award from Cornell University Medical College.

Dr. Mason has served on the NIAAA Scientific Advisory Council and as a guest expert for the FDA, and is an elected fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.