Ernst Strüngmann Forum

Social Connectedness: Constructs, Mechanisms, and Implications for Substance Use

Harriet de Wit and Martin Paulus, Chairs

Social connectedness is increasingly recognized as a crucial factor that shapes human behavior and well-being and affects psychiatric disorders such as substance use. Positive social ties are associated with resilience and thriving, whereas poor social ties contribute to stress, loneliness, and mental health disorders, including nonmedical substance use. Increasingly, research has examined social connectedness in diverse fields such as neuroscience, biology, psychology, and behavioral pharmacology, yet progress in one field often happens independently of another, leading to gaps in our collective knowledge.

At this Forum, experts from different disciplines will consider how definitions and measures of social connectedness might illuminate mechanisms of substance use vulnerability, how brain networks and behavioral processes interact in shaping patterns of substance consumption, and how targeted interventions that enhance social ties could reduce individual and communal burdens of substance abuse. It aims to establish shared conceptual definitions, identify neural and behavioral correlations of both connection and disconnection, and determine how best to translate emergent insights into tangible outcomes. This effort will culminate in a research blueprint and comprehensive set of recommendations for the scientific community, funding agencies, and policymakers. It will clarify how the field might move forward to integrate the biology of social reward with the behavioral and environmental factors that determine substance-seeking behavior, and chart a path for collaborative endeavors to minimize the societal impact of substance misuse through enhanced social well-being.

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Simplicity behind Absurdity: The Power of Quantum Thinking

Atsushi Iriki and Andrei Khrennikov, Chairs

The “scientific view of the world,” which has characterized human civilization throughout modern history, has been successful in objectifying and rationalizing (in mechanical terms) nature, humans, and society for reductive analysis to permit straightforward causation. This view, however, has been unable to account for the multilayered, possibly even inconsistent (in classical terms), causal structures that underlie actual phenomena (i.e., the absurdity). Given the ever-increasing complexity in our world, it has been extremely difficult to explain systematically the complexities of human cognitive traits based on classical “rational” reasoning.

Quantum-like methodology/modeling (QLM) provides an alternative entry point. By borrowing from quantum probability and information and applying quantum formalizations, it may be possible to rationalize seemingly “absurd” phenomena and to extend understanding beyond what has been obtained through the “simplicity” of straightforward formalisms. Importantly, QLM is distinguished from quantum biophysics as well as from quantum cognition and consciousness (in the spirit of Hameroff and Penrose). Whereas quantum biophysics and quantum cognition address physics processes of quantum mechanics in biological systems, QLM focuses on macroscopic biological, social, and, more recently, AI systems. Thus, the QLM approach describes information processing using quantum information and probability principles, but is not rooted in quantum mechanics.

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