University of Helsinki
Recently, the A-BRAIN consortium welcomed two new researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.
PhD student Samantha Rundle started already in late 2018 and became a crucial part of the focus group material gathering last winter. Rundle started her work in the addiction field in her recently completed Master’s thesis at the University of Toronto. Her current research examines the impact of stigma on individuals suffering from substance use disorders.
In her MA thesis Samantha investigated how public stigma is impacted by the way in which we define addiction, and by the beliefs that individuals hold toward addiction in the society. Findings from the study suggested that addictive disorders continue to be more stigmatized than a co-occurring addictive and mental health disorder, a mental health disorder alone, and a non-psychiatric medical disorder (diabetes). Additionally, it indicated that beliefs in a psychological and natural model of addiction over a Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA) predicted the lowest public stigma ratings towards individuals suffering from an addictive disorder.
Currently, Samantha is entering into her PhD research at CAMH at the University of Toronto, under supervision of A-BRAIN CAMH PI Dr. Christian Hendershot. Enrolled through the Department of Experimental Psychology, she hopes to expand upon her previous findings in her dissertation work, and to gain a greater understanding of how researchers can change the way the public thinks about addictions.
Samantha presented her Master’s work in a poster session for early career researchers during the ERA-NET Neuron’s symposium in Lisbon, and her poster was selected among the best three! (See Lissabon report)
Also, at the CAMH, postdoctoral fellow Syaron Basnet has started working on a conceptual analysis of previous literature on the BDMA under supervision of Hendershot. She will be contributing in developing knowledge in theoretical models of addiction, with an emphasis on the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA).
Syaron graduated from the doctoral program in population health at the University of Helsinki. She has worked as a researcher at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki in mental health projects related to gambling, addiction, and sleep problems. Her PhD thesis examined the association between circadian factors including sleep problems, chronotype, and seasonality explaining the chronic diseases’ outcome in the general adult population in Finland.
We wish our new colleagues a warm welcome!