Dr. Krank’s research program began in Behavioural Neuroscience with investigations into the role of learning in the development and display of drug tolerance. Seminal work during his graduate school led to science publications on the importance of drug expectancies to drug tolerance including heroin overdose death. Since that time, he has established an independent research program examining how drug expectancies influence the initiation and persistence of drug use including alcohol and opiates. This work initially began with animal models, but has progressed to human studies focusing on adolescents and college students. His current research focuses on a longitudinal study of cognitive changes predicting risk-taking transitions in adolescents. He has been Principal Investigator on grants totalling $783,000 and a collaborator on grants totalling about $1.3 M. As an administrator, he has also obtained OUC’s first SIG and ASUG grants from SSHRC.

Current Project

HABIT curriculum development

Healthy automatic behaviors, intentions, and thoughts (HABIT) is an approach to health education that focuses on how the brain and the mind work.  The goal is to encourage healthy behaviors.  The program provides accurate information and exercises designed to promote healthy thinking.  The program is unique in addressing automatic thinking and behaviors in support of deliberate and purposeful choices to achieve life goals.

We are currently developing the curriculum for Grade 5/6, teacher supports for the program, a workbook with exercises, and on-line activities.  We will test the program in several classrooms this spring.  Following the pilot, we will revise the materials in response to student and teacher feedback.  A full-scale pilot with initial evaluation will begin next fall.

This project focus on the development of curriculum to support heathy choices in the early teens (12-16). It is designed as universal prevention during a vulnerable developmental time where life changing choices can occur.  In addition to explicit content encouraging healthy behaviors, this curriculum will include training exercises that are designed to support healthy automatic thinking and choices.  This training targets the cognitive biases that can arise in the early teen years and contribute to early substance use.  .  These include unrealistic positive expectancies about the effects of using (outcome expectancies), overestimation of how many, how much, and how often peers use (social norms), and drug culture associations.  Specific procedures include attentional bias modification training, cognitive methods to reduce biases, and developing protective associations.

Healthy Automatic Behaviors and Intentions Training (HABIT)

The lab is currently pursuing a number of projects examining ways to support healthy thinking and choices to reduce substance abuse in youth.  The goals include reducing the initiation and escalation of substance use in early teens (ages 12 – 16) and the reduction of substance abuse in youth 17-24.  These projects target changing risky cognitions that arise from social influences and are associated with changes in substance use.  The approach uses what we know about dual cognitive processing to modify cognitive biases that lead to higher risk substance use.

Specific Projects

HABIT Substance Abuse Prevention  

This project focuses on youth who already use alcohol or cannabis with goal of reducing problem use (ages 17-24).  The targets are risky cognitions including unrealistic positive expectancies about the effects of using (outcome expectancies) and overestimation of how many, how much, and how often peers use (social norms).  This project differs from the early intervention in addressing established cognitions that support higher levels of use (e.g. binge drinking) and use that leads to more problems (e.g. negative coping use like stress reduction).  Specific procedures include attentional bias modification training, alternative behavior training (e.g. implementation intentions, meditation), and cognitive methods to modify biases.

HABIT Program Evaluation 

This project focus on the development of curriculum to support heathy choices in the early teens (12-16). It is designed as universal prevention during a vulnerable developmental time where life changing choices can occur.  In addition to explicit content encouraging healthy behaviors, this curriculum will include training exercises that are designed to support healthy automatic thinking and choices.  This training targets the cognitive biases that can arise in the early teen years and contribute to early substance use.  .  These include unrealistic positive expectancies about the effects of using (outcome expectancies), overestimation of how many, how much, and how often peers use (social norms), and drug culture associations.  Specific procedures include attentional bias modification training, cognitive methods to reduce biases, and developing protective associations.

Profile of Healthy Activities and Risk Monitoring (PHARM)

The lab is also testing new methods to measure substance use behaviors, social influences, and implicit biases in a computer monitoring and risk screening system.  This method includes assessment in a longitudinal design to detect changes in trajectories of use.  The PHARM assessment uses implicit measures of substance use associations, spontaneous outcome expectancies, and both descriptive and subjective norms.  It also uses a hierarchical system to detect early substance use, progression to higher levels of use, and problems associated with use.

In addition to providing an informative snapshot of current level of use, the PHARM screening tool is an on-going lab to test new measurement techniques, measure the impacts of social influence on cognitions and behavior (mediation studies), and is used to monitor change in our HABIT studies.

Cannabis Affect Misattribution Procedure

We are currently testing the validity of a brief cognitive task, the Affect Misattribution Procedure, as a measure of implicit affect in response to alcohol and cannabis images.  This spring we will test the procedure in both middle school students and university students.  The initial goal is to measure predictive validity for concurrent alcohol and cannabis use as well as convergent and discriminant validity compared to established implicit and explicit cognitive measure of substance use risk.

Health Beliefs and Alcohol Product Preferences

We are currently piloting the relationship between health beliefs and alcohol beverage choices as well as consumption patterns.  University students describe their health beliefs, perform a preference task, and report their patterns of alcohol consumption.

Mindful Rest Training (MRT) and Alcohol Misuse

Mindful Rest Training (MRT) is a meditation method that improves coping and has direct health benefits.  We are testing whether MRT reduces harmful substance use in University students.  All students receive a baseline questionnaire to assess current levels of use.  Half of these students receive MRT prior to a second questionnaire and half receive MRT after the questionnaire.  We will compare the levels of substance use and substance use cognitions to assess the effects of MRT.