Mustafa al'Absi, PhD

Dr. al’Absi has established an international research program focusing on the biological and psychophysiological effects of stress on addictive behaviors and mental health conditions. His team works to elucidate the biobehavioral mechanisms by which stress and early life adversity contribute to addiction and mental health disorders, using this knowledge to develop tailored interventions. His research integrates basic, laboratory, and clinical methods. Early on, Dr. al’Absi focused on stress mechanisms related to heart disease risk, conducting pioneering lab and field studies with natural stressors and pharmacological challenges. Funded by NHLBI and AHA, he defined mechanisms of hypoalgesia and stress response alterations in hypertension. He later focused on stress response alterations in clinical conditions, particularly addiction. His key finding, replicated in his program, is the blunted hormonal stress response in stimulant addiction, which predicts early relapse. Dr. al’Absi’s current research explores the role of endogenous opioids and the endocannabinoid system in modulating stress responses and examines how these responses predict changes in dietary intake, weight, and relapse, aiming to inform targeted treatments for smoking cessation. He has also led efforts to improve stress and substance use assessment by developing high-tech, unobtrusive methods using wearable sensors for real-time, continuous data collection in natural settings, enabling just-in-time interventions.

Dr. al’Absi’s research has been funded by multiple R01 grants from NIDA and NCI, AHA grant-in-aid, and grants from the University of Minnesota and IBRO, as well as a Smart Health and Wellbeing award from NSF. He has received numerous honors, including the ABMR Neal E. Miller Award, the American Psychosomatic Society Herbert Weiner Award, the NIDA Award of Excellence in Collaborative Research, and the Hans Selye Lectureship from WASAD. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Sciences, the Academy for Behavioral Medicine, and the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT), and a former fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Mind-Body Network. Dr. al’Absi has authored over 220 scientific articles, two books, and many book chapters. He has served as a guest editor for Biological Psychology; Psychosomatic Medicine; and Journal of Neural Transmission, He has served as an associate editor for Psychophysiology. He is currently on the editorial boards of Health Psychology, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Journal of Neural Transmission, and others. He has served on multiple NIH, VA, and NSF review panels, including the “Mechanisms of Emotion, Stress, and Health” Study Section. Dr. al’Absi has held leadership roles, including president of the American Psychosomatic Society (APS), executive council member and chair of the membership committee at the Academy for Behavioral Medicine Research (ABMR), president of the Africa & Middle East Congress on Addiction (AMECA), and board member of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR). He also serves on the UNODC-WHO Informal Scientific Network (ISN). In addition to his research and leadership, Dr. al’Absi is committed to training the next generation of physicians and scientists, mentoring medical, graduate, and undergraduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty members at the University of Minnesota and other institutions.