Many people who successfully give up drugs or alcohol relapse and start using again over a period of months or years. It not only leads to frustration and misery for people with drug or alcohol problems themselves but also has a significant impact on their families and society financially and emotionally. This research aims to develop new ways to understand why people who give up drugs or alcohol find it so difficult to remain abstinent in the long term. We will analyse brain imaging data from the UK Biobank using new mathematical approaches to develop models to help explain patterns of drugs or alcohol-related behaviour which might in turn help with the development of new treatments. The project is expected to last three years. After completing careful mathematical modelling of the data, we will follow this with a separate study of people with recent drug or alcohol problems to test whether our models are clinically useful. If so, the research has the potential to help develop new interventions based on a better understanding of when and why people relapse, with the potential to significantly impact public health.
