My work focuses on psychophysiology and psychopharmacology research as well as the development of evidence-based clinical strategies and behavioral treatment to create new models of care and novel treatments for drug abuse and dependence, with emphases on nicotine addiction, smoking cessation, and... Read more

My work focuses on psychophysiology and psychopharmacology research as well as the development of evidence-based clinical strategies and behavioral treatment to create new models of care and novel treatments for drug abuse and dependence, with emphases on nicotine addiction, smoking cessation, and relapse prevention treatment. My goal is also to incorporate current drug abuse issues among Hispanic populations to my research and become an active participant in the generation of drug researchers in this field. As a member of the Center for Addiction Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, I have been co-investigator of several nicotine dependence studies: the Cooperative Drug Discovery Group Project for Nicotine Dependence, studies that tested mecamylamine, varenicline, and glycine in smokers with schizophrenia, and the innovative study "Memory Reconsolidation Blockade as a Novel Intervention for Nicotine Dependence," in which I implemented a successful adaptation of a novel technique for the assessment of physiological activation to smoking cues in response to neutral vs. personalized smoking-related script-driven imagery in a double-blind placebo-controlled smoking cessation trial in 54 smokers. I was awarded the National Institute of Mental Health-New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit Young Investigator Award for 2010 and the MGH-Psychiatry Department Award for the poster submission reporting robust physiologic activation to smoking versus neutral scripts. I am applying this successful work in the physiological reaction to smoking cues to the study of Mindfulness Based Behavioral Therapy to provide physiological data to compare the effectiveness of this novel therapy to existing CBT which represents an important shift towards developing objective rather than subjective tools to evaluate the efficacy of therapies for smoking cessation. My work provides a physiological validation to behavioral interventions, creating a more precise understanding of the mechanisms by which these interventions operate to better understand the impact of treatment on the individual as a psychophysiological entity.

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I am a physician with interests in behavioral treatments of alcohol, nicotine, and cocaine dependence, development of new evidence-based clinical strategies to create new models of care and novel treatment for drug abuse and dependence, with emphasis on nicotine addiction, smoking cessation and... Read more

I am a physician with interests in behavioral treatments of alcohol, nicotine, and cocaine dependence, development of new evidence-based clinical strategies to create new models of care and novel treatment for drug abuse and dependence, with emphasis on nicotine addiction, smoking cessation and relapse prevention treatment as well as preventive interventions in nicotine use based on gender differences, vulnerabilities present in early childhood and adolescence and underrepresented minorities and other marginalized groups. I am committed to promoting diversity in health care research.

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