Biography
- 1994: PhD in psychology from the University of Gothenburg. Title of the doctoral thesis: Alcohol consumption in the rat: modulation by adrenal steroids and mesotelencephalic dopamine.
- 1997: Postdoctoral position at the National Institutes on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, USA.
- 1998: Associate professor in psychology and senior lecturer at the Department of Psychology, Göteborg University.
- 2006: Professor in psychology at the Department of Psychology, Göteborg University and licensed clinical psychologist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg.
- 2015: Professor in health psychology at the Department of Psychology, Göteborg University.
- Head of the Centre for Education and Research on Addiction (CERA) at the University of Gothenburg (20012-2019). Member of several committees, for example the Swedish research council for health, working life and welfare, Scientific Counsel of Psychology for the National Board of Health and Welfare and for the Prison and Probation Service
Teaching
The main focus of my teaching and supervising is in health psychology, addiction psychology, personality psychology and biological psychology.
Has supervised 14 doctoral students for public defense and has today six doctoral students under supervision in the area of addiction psychology, health psychology and clinical psychology.
Research interests
The broad and long-term objective of my research is to gain insight into the psychological and neurobiological risk factors that underlies alcohol abuse and dependence, and to what extent these risk factors interact. Furthermore, strategies of psychotherapy treatment are studied and whether psychological and neurobiological risk factors can predict treatment outcome and relapse.
In collaboration with colleagues from other universities, the goal of our research is to develop tailor-made treatment strategies for alcohol-dependence and to develop tools effective for prevention of unhealthy behavior, including excessive alcohol drinking.
Current research
My research group (Addiction Psychology) are the first to report an association between the TaqIA polymorphism of the dopamine D2 receptor gene and a substantially increased self-reported relapse rate in excessive alcohol drinking at follow-up 1½ year after end of a twelve-step treatment. This finding adds additional knowledge to the fast growing research field of association between genetic polymorphism and treatment outcome. Notably, we have also shown that alcohol-dependent individuals, who are carriers of this polymorphism, have an increased mortality rate by about 40 % in comparison to non-carriers. Our findings may lead to the implementation of genotyping for the TaqIA polymorphism in individuals with severe alcohol-dependence.
Another important contribution is that the longer the duration of excessive alcohol intake, the more pronounced is the impairment of the serotonergic function and personality traits such as harm avoidance. In addition, we are the first who have investigated the monoaminergic systems (i.e. serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline) in one and the same alcohol-dependent individual. Dysfunctions in these systems were restricted to an impairment of the serotonergic system, suggesting that this system is especially vulnerable to long-term excessive alcohol consumption. Moreover, impaired monoaminergic profiles, including low responses in two or three systems, were more frequently observed in alcohol-dependent individuals than in controls. Such impaired profiles may be of clinical importance.
Recent findings from a study concerning long-term treatment outcome (up to 5 years), with respect to different drinking goals of patients, suggest that (1) alcohol-dependent patients who have abstinence as their own drinking goal have a more favorable treatment outcome than those who have low-risk drinking as a goal or no decided goal. (2) Abstinence as a drinking goal should be considered for those who have a longer duration (for example more than 10 years) of their alcohol-related problems. (3) Patients who have no decided goal should be recommended abstinence as a drinking goal.
For more information, see publication list.
