Areas of expertise: addiction neurosciences; affective neurosciences; neurosciences; structural and functional neuroimaging; neuromodulation; psychiatric assessment; cognition; addiction; neurodevelopment; multi-site studies; imaging consortia; meta-analysis; OCD; problem gambling; cannabis; standard cannabis unit; mindfulness-based intervention; double-blind trials
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5917-7068
Phone: +61 3 9230 8088
Email: valentina.lorenzetti@acu.edu.au
Location: ACU Melbourne Campus
My research aims to examine vulnerability to and recovery of brain and mental health harms in chronic addictions and psychopathology, by combining advanced multimodal neuroimaging tools, global multi-site cohorts and new interventions. My research interests include: (1) identifying who is most vulnerable to brain and mental health harms among substance users, (2) examining if men and women who use substances (e.g. cannabis, alcohol, meth) show differential vulnerability to neurobiological changes with substance use, (3) exploring which substance using youth are most vulnerable and resilient to brain changes, mental health problems and worse cognitive performance, (4) Explore how mindfulness-based strategies, and cannabidiol-based interventions, mitigate adverse brain, mental health and cognitive outcomes in substance use and addiction, (5) Developing consensus-based, agreed-upon gold standards to measure substance use and misuse across research, treatment and public health settings.