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- Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
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My research is focused on understanding the human experience of opioid use and opioid use disorder (OUD). The majority of my work has been in human laboratory studies and clinical trials, and I have leveraged my background in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral pharmacology to identify risk factors for illicit drug relapse and medication strategies to improve OUD treatment outcomes. These studies cover the continuum of care, including supervised opioid withdrawal and sustained recovery using medications for OUD. Topics of interest include sleep disturbance, drug craving, and diurnal measures of stress and mood. In addition, my work in OUD patients has naturally led me to investigate the tradeoffs between the abuse liability and analgesic efficacy of opioid medications, including research on persons with chronic and/or acute pain. My lab employs diverse methodological approaches to better understand opioid use and OUD, including neuroimaging, ecological momentary assessments, wearable technologies, human laboratory studies, and survey research. Taken together, this research is aimed at improving treatment outcomes directly and evaluating and strategizing macro-level changes to improve healthcare for substance use and related disorders.
Huhn AS, Hobelmann JG, Strickland JC, Oyler GA, Bergeria CL, Umbricht A, Dunn KE. Differences in availability and use of medications for opioid use disorder in residential treatment settings in the United States. JAMA Network Open. 2020; 3(2):e1920843
Huhn AS, Strain EC, Bigelow GE, Smith MT, Edwards RR, Tompkins DA. A randomized placebo-controlled trial of the analgesic effects of hydromorphone versus buprenorphine in buprenorphine-maintained individuals. Anesthesiology. 2019; 130(1): 131-141
Huhn AS, Sweeney MM, Brooner RK, Kidorf MS, Tompkins DA, Ayaz H, Dunn KE. Prefrontal cortex response to drug cues, craving, and current depressive symptoms are associated with treatment outcomes in methadone-maintained patients. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2019; 44(4): 826. doi: 10.1038/s41386-018-0252-0
Huhn AS, Dunn KE. Why aren’t physicians prescribing more buprenorphine? Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. 2017; 78: 1-7
Huhn AS, Meyer RE, Harris JD, Ayaz H, Izzetoglu K, Deneke E, Bunce SC. Evidence of anhedonia and differential reward processing in prefrontal cortex among post-withdrawal patients with prescription opiate dependence. Brain Research Bulletin. 2016; 123: 102-109