Mentoring in the Clinical Neuroscience of Alcohol Use Disorder - Project Summary This K24 Career Development Award in Patient-Oriented Research seeks support for a well-established, mid- career Professor in Psychiatry at Yale who has a track record of achievement in patient-oriented alcohol research, and a long-standing commitment to mentorship. Dr. Cosgrove leads a research program devoted to using brain imaging to elucidate brain mechanisms underlying the maintenance of and recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD) to inform clinical treatment. Through this award, she seeks support for career development and training in new techniques and systems that will foster a comprehensive approach to AUD. Dr. Cosgrove has a long history as a mentor and is committed to the development of new alcohol research scientists. Her efforts in mentorship have recently increased as she assumed responsibility as Co-Director of the Translational Alcohol Research Program (TARP), an NIAAA-funded T32 for postdoctoral fellows (PhDs and MDs). The proposed mentoring plan will include continued and new mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows (including as TARP Co-Director), and junior faculty. Additionally, she is a mentor on two NIAAA-funded K01 Career Development Awards awarded to faculty at Yale. Dr. Cosgrove will provide mentoring in study design, recruitment and characterization of participants with AUD, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, manuscript and grant writing, research ethics, and career development. Dr. Cosgrove has a strong commitment to mentoring students from diverse backgrounds. As part of her career development, she will engage in training in diversity, equity, and inclusion to improve her mentorship skills in this area and to conscientiously increase the diversity of alcohol researchers through recruitment for the TARP, Yale- Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE), and her research program. Dr. Cosgrove’s overall research program has focused on the clinical neuroscience of AUD using state-of-the art brain imaging techniques. The proposed career development plan consists of training and coursework in a new technique (metabolomics), and organ system (liver) in order to promote a more comprehensive approach to the study of AUD. The goal is to increase and expand proficiency in these areas that, in addition to expertise in the neurochemistry of AUD, will allow her to be a more effective mentor and researcher across a range of domains related to patient-oriented AUD research. The research plan is constructed around Dr. Cosgrove’s primary project on the Yale-SCORE, which is broadly focused on sex differences in treatments for AUD. Her project utilizes positron emission tomography (PET) brain imaging to measure markers of neurodegeneration and related neurocognitive function in people with AUD. Adding techniques to this project to measure molecules and systems outside of the brain will provide a vehicle for the proposed training and mentorship plan. The proposed integrated mentoring, training, and research plans will advance Dr. Cosgrove as a mentor and investigator in patient-oriented alcohol research.
