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Fucito Lab
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INFORMATION FOR

Research

Research in the Fucito Lab is organized around several interrelated themes:

  • Phenotyping. We try to understand the varied ways that individuals experience and respond to substance use to identify unique subtypes and mechanisms underlying use and dependence. This information can help us generate new treatment targets and better tailor treatment to an individual’s needs.
  • Digital & deep phenotyping. We use large data obtained from smartphones and various wearables for substance use phenotyping. Digital technologies offer many advantages including the ability to collect behavioral data continuously and unobtrusively as they occur in everyday life. Digital phenotyping can offer new tools for early risk detection, prevention, and personalized interventions.
  • Lifestyle health & psychiatry. We study substance use through a lifestyle health framework, which emphasizes six key pillars: nutrition, physical activity, sleep, social connection, stress management & well-being, and avoidance of substances. We investigate how substance use relates to these other health pillars, how we can leverage these other health pillars to engage adults in treatment for their substance use, and integrated lifestyle interventions for substance use.
  • Novel, integrated treatments. A core aim of our intervention research is to design interventions that are personalized, holistic, and accessible. We develop and test interventions that target multiple substance use, integrate substance use treatment with other lifestyle interventions (e.g., sleep), and specialty healthcare (e.g., oncology), and incorporate digital health technologies. One innovative line of work involves providing personalized wearable feedback that links substance use to other health biometrics.
  • Regulatory science. Besides treatment, policies are another strategy to reduce the public health burden of substance use. For instance, some lab projects focus on obtaining scientific evidence to inform the regulation of tobacco products. We are testing the effects of different nicotine concentration levels and flavors in different tobacco products on behavior and addiction.
  • Other interesting research. Other cool projects include tracking substance use trends through social media analytics, validating data from smartphones and wearables, and exploring adults’ health behaviors and preferences related to substance use and mental health concerns, including use of digital health technologies.