Alcohol and ED co-administration is relatively common among ED users and seems to be associated with increased alcohol ingestion. It is recommended that this matter receive more clinical and research attention.

Evidence from imaging, clinical studies, and pathology suggests that Parkinson's disease is preceded by a prodromal stage that predates clinical diagnosis by several years but there is no established method for detecting this stage. Olfactory impairment, which is common in Parkinson's disease and often predates clinical diagnosis, may be a useful biomarker for early Parkinson's. Evidence is emerging that diffusion imaging parameters might be altered in olfactory tract and substantia nigra in the early stages of clinical Parkinson's disease, possibly reflecting pathological changes. However, no study has examined olfaction and diffusion imaging in olfactory tract and substantia nigra in the same group of patients. The present study compared newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease patients with a matched control group using both olfactory testing and diffusion tensor imaging of the substantia nigra and anterior olfactory structures. Fourteen patients with stage 1-2 Hoehn & Yahr Parkinson's disease were matched to a control group by age and sex. All subjects then completed the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test, as well as a series of MRI scans designed to examine diffusion characteristics of the olfactory tract and the substantia nigra. Olfactory testing revealed significant impairment in the patient group. Diffusion tensor imaging revealed significant group differences in both the substantia nigra and anterior olfactory region, with fractional anisotropy of the olfactory region clearly distinguishing the Parkinson's subjects from controls. This study suggests that there may be value in combining behavioral (olfaction) and MRI testing to identify early Parkinson's disease. Since loss of olfaction often precedes the motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease, the important question raised is "will the combination of olfactory testing and MRI (DTI) testing identify pre-motor Parkinson's disease?"

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This study tested the predictive validity of a novel, brief, and easy-to-use self-report measure of expectancies and their subjective values for alcohol and marijuana use. Canadian students in Grades 7 to 11 were administered paper-and-pencil questionnaires once per year for 3 consecutive years (Krank et al., 2011). As part of the questionnaire, participants completed an outcome expectancy measure where they were asked to list 3 or 4 things they expected would happen if they used a particular substance (i.e., alcohol, marijuana) and to indicate for each whether they would or would not like this outcome. "Liking" outcomes were coded as +1, "not like" as -1, and summed to obtain an outcome expectancy liking (OEL) sum for each participant and each substance. Participants also completed substance use behavior questions for alcohol and marijuana. Multilevel modeling demonstrated that OEL sum significantly predicted the intercept and slope of substance use trajectories by participants, even when demographic variables were controlled. For both alcohol and marijuana, multilevel modeling analyses indicated that a more positive OEL sum for a substance in the first year of the study were more likely to have tried that substance earlier (intercept) and were more likely to escalate their use at a greater rate over time (slope). The results complement the predictive validity found with other direct and indirect measures of substance use associations. The outcome expectancy liking task is a simple and unobtrusive method for identifying adolescents who are at risk for early substance abuse.

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