Dr. Suchismita Ray, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Informatics at the Rutgers School of Health Professions and BHI Member, received her PhD. degree in Cognitive Psychology from Rutgers and completed her post-doctoral training in addiction neuroscience from Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies. Dr. Ray’s research mission is to examine the cognitive, behavioral, and brain mechanisms underlying opioid and cocaine addiction, and to develop new effective pharmacological and behavioral interventions to improve health outcomes.
Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation (ABMRF), Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey and several Rutgers internal grants. During the past few years, Dr. Ray utilized mindfulness to examine its efficacy in individuals with opioid and other substance use disorders. Results show mindfulness improves brain functioning and emotional regulation that has implications to reduce drug use and improve health outcomes.
In Dr. Ray’s recently NIH funded project (09-2024 to 08-2029; National Institute on Drug Abuse, R61/R33 grant for $3.18 million), Dr. Ray plans to investigate the efficacy of an extended release Guanfacine pharmacotherapy and MORE behavioral intervention, independently and their combination (R61 stage) and then to elucidate the underlying neural mechanisms (R33 phase) to improve stress- as well as opioid-cue provoked craving in opioid using individuals maintained on buprenorphine by targeting the regulatory, affective, and reward salience brain mechanisms.
In Dr. Ray’s another recently funded NIH study (09-2024 to 08-2029; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, R01 grant for $1.38 million) as a site principal investigator she plans to study the efficacy of Guanfacine pharmacotherapy in women with alcohol use disorder. Her research on drug addiction has been highlighted in Rutgers and New Jersey local news channels.
Project details: Combined guanfacine and mindfulness meditation as an adjunct to buprenorphine maintenance in OUD
Written by: Tongyue Zhang (Lily), Rutgers Brain Health Institute (BHI)