About our Research

Members of the Hawn TRAC Lab is busy getting numerous research studies off the ground! These focus on a variety of health and behavior topics, including:

  • Understanding the various forms of trauma-specific self-medication (e.g., trauma-related drinking to cope, cannabis use to cope, and eating behaviors to cope)
  • Effects of self-medication on known biomarkers of disease and premature death (e.g., epigenetic aging, peripheral biomarkers of inflammation and neuropathology)
  • Improving understanding of the full range of responses to trauma, including both adaptive (e.g., resilient) and adverse (e.g., PTSD) responses
  • The effect of PTSD, alcohol use disorder (AUD), and co-occurring PTSD-AUD on the gut microbiome