Open Grants
Devaluing Energy-Dense Foods for Cancer Control: Translational Neuroscience
Funding period: 2017–2022
PI: Dr. Elliot Berkman
Funded by: National Cancer Institute
Grant number: R01 CA211224
A precision medicine trial of two scalable interventions to change the subjective and neural valuation of cancer-related foods and to help people at elevated cancer risk eat more healthfully.
Closed Grants
Tailored Inhibitory Control Training to Reverse EA-Linked Deficits in Mid-Life
Funding period: 2014–2017
PI: Dr. Elliot Berkman
Funded by: National Institute on Aging
Grant number: R01 AG048840
A neurally informed model of inhibitory control is being used to test the efficacy of an intervention for mid-life individuals with early adversity.Transition to Scalability (Motivational Boost at Scale, Phase I)
Funding period: 2017–2018
Subaward PI: Dr. Elliot Berkman;
Harvard Univ. PI: Dr. Jack Shonkoff
Funded by: Bezos Family Foundation-
Grant number: 170410
A brief online and mobile program to increase parents’ motivation to engage in parenting classes is being expanded to additional sites, and technology is being developed to deliver the intervention.Transition to Scalability (Motivational Boost at Scale, Phase I)
Funding period: 2017–2018
Subaward PI: Dr. Elliot Berkman
Harvard Univ. PI: Dr. Jack Shonkoff
Funded by: Bezos Family Foundation
Grant number: 170410
In past work, a brief online and mobile program has been developed to increase parents’ motivation to engage in parenting classes. This grant has funded the next step in that line of work by expanding the reach of the program to several additional sites, developing the underlying technology to deliver the intervention, and creating a business plan to make the program self-sustaining.Brain-Based Intervention to Remediate the Effects of Early Adversity on Inhibitory Control
Funding period: Jan.–Dec. 2015
Principal Investigator: Elliot Berkman, PhD
Frontiers of Innovation initiative, Harvard Center on the Developing Child
This study evaluated a neurally informed intervention to reduce adolescents’ peer-linked risk behaviors by increasing inhibitory control in peer contexts. It also sought to clarify effects of early adversity on inhibitory control and the mechanisms through which those effects could be re-mediated with intervention.Endogenous Opioids in Meditation Pain Relief
Funding period: 2014–2015
PI: Elliot Berkman, PhD; Lisa May, University of Oregon
Funded by: Mind and Life Institute
Grant number: 2013-VARELA-MAY
This experiment is using the opioid antagonist Naloxone to research meditation-based pain relief to determine if opioid receptors are activated and if endogenous opioids interact with trait factors in meditation-based pain relief.Inhibitory Control Training to Remediate the Effect of Early Adversity in At-Risk Youth
Combined funding period: January 1, 2014–June 15, 2015
PI: Dr. Elliot Berkman
Funded by: Center on the Developing Child at Harvard; National Institute on Drug Abuse Translational Drug Abuse Prevention Center
Grant number: P50 DA035763
This combined study evaluates the feasibility of an intervention to reduce peer-linked risk behaviors by increasing inhibitory control in a sample of at-risk adolescents. Peer-associated risk behaviors and their sequelae are pronounced among individuals with high levels of early adversity (EA), and EA is associated with inhibitory control deficits throughout childhood and adolescence. This research seeks to quantify the effects of EA on inhibitory control and the neural mechanisms through which those effects might be remediated with intervention. Groups with high and with low levels of EA will be compared in terms of their under-lying neural systems for inhibitory control and how those systems respond differently to intervention.Self-, Peer-, and Distant Other-Authored Messages for Cigarette Smoking Cessation
Funding period: September 1, 2012– August 31, 2014
PI: Dr. Elliot Berkman Funded by: National Cancer Institute, University of Michigan Center for Excellence in Cancer Communications Research
Grant number: P50 CA101451
This research seeks to make health messages about cigarette smoking cessation self-relevant by personally tailoring them to increase their persuasiveness and effectiveness. Self-relevance activates the brain’s medial prefrontal cortex, which is predictive of health behavior change. It is not known if self-authored messages are more effective than other messages or if distance from the self improves effectiveness, nor is it known if self-authored messages recruit the same or different neural systems as other-authored messages. Neural, self-report, and behavioral measures of health-related message effectiveness are used, as are predictive statistics and computation-al linguistic analyses.