Justin Charles Strickland, PhD

Primary Academic Title

Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Research Summary

My research focuses on the use of behavioral economics as a theoretical framework to address issues of public health significance to include addiction and sexual health. This work applies a translational pipeline of preclinical animal research, human laboratory assessment, and clinical trials to evaluate choice and decision-making processes at the intersection of the self (e.g., genetic predisposition, reinforcement history) and setting (e.g., environmental cues, alternative reinforcers). Examples of recent research includes the interaction of expectancy and nicotine dose manipulations on cigarette abuse liability and role of behavioral economic decision-making in social context driven heavy alcohol use. I am also interested in the behavioral mechanisms underlying psychedelic drug effects and treatment efficacy.

Selected Publications

• Strickland JC and Lacy RT (2020) Behavioral economic demand as a unifying language for addiction science: Promoting collaboration and integration of animal and human models. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 28, 404-416

• Strickland JC and Smith MA (2014) The effects of social contact on drug use: Behavioral mechanisms controlling drug intake. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 22, 23-34

• Strickland JC, Havens JR, and Stoops WW (2019) A nationally representative analysis of “twin epidemics”: Rising rates of methamphetamine use among persons who use opioids. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 204, 107592

• Strickland JC, Marks KR, and Stoops WW (2021) Researcher perspectives on including people who use drugs in clinical research. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 47, 182-190

• Lacy RT, Austin BP, and Strickland JC (2020) The influence of sex and estrous cyclicity on cocaine and remifentanil demand in rats. Addiction Biology, 25, e12716

Additional Training

• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Human Behavioral Pharmacology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD (2021)