Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in massive disruptions to society, to the economy, and to daily life. Some people may turn to alcohol to cope with stress during the pandemic, which may put them at risk for heavy drinking and alcohol-related harms. Research is needed to identify factors that are relevant for coping-motivated drinking during these extraordinary circumstances to inform interventions. This study provides an empirical examination of coping motive pathways to alcohol problems during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Participants (N = 320; 54.7% male; mean age of 32 years) were Canadian adult drinkers who completed an online survey assessing work-and home-related factors, psychological factors, and alcohol-related outcomes over the past 30 days, covering a time period beginning within 1 month of the initiation of the COVID-19 emergency response. Results: The results of a theory-informed path model showed that having at least 1 child under the age of 18, greater depression, and lower social connectedness each predicted unique variance in past 30day coping motives, which in turn predicted increased past 30-day alcohol use (controlling for pre-COVID-19 alcohol use reported retrospectively). Income loss was associated with increased alcohol use, and living alone was associated with increased solitary drinking (controlling for pre-COVID-19 levels), but these associations were not mediated by coping motives. Increased alcohol use, increased solitary drinking, and greater coping motives for drinking were all independently associated with past 30-day alcohol problems, and indirect paths to alcohol problems from having children at home, depression, social connectedness, income loss, and living alone were all supported. Conclusions: Findings provide insight into coping-motivated drinking early in the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the need for longitudinal research to establish longer term outcomes of drinking to cope during the pandemic.

HighlightsPFC-amygdala FC is altered in GAD, indicating top-down processing deficits.GAD had reduced activity for emotion regulation and working memory in the culmen.Salience, default, and central executive nodes have altered structure and function.

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Mindfulness refers to attending to moment-to-moment experiences with acceptance and no judgment. Several scales have been developed to quantify different components of mindfulness. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) is particularly sensitive to trait mindfulness and is proposed to measure the attentional component of mindfulness. The purpose of this study was to identify the neural correlates of the MAAS in four resting-state networks related to attention-the default mode network (DMN), the salience network (SN), and the left and right central executive network (CEN). Thirty-two university students naive to mindfulness completed the MAAS and later underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Resting-state data were analyzed using an independent component analysis; the scores from the MAAS were covaried to the connectivity maps in an analysis of covariance. The results indicate that variations in MAAS scores correlated with variations in functional connectivity patterns in resting-state networks. Specifically, within the SN and CEN, the MAAS was negatively correlated with functional connectivity in the precuneus, even though the precuneus is a key component of the DMN. Negative correlations in the DMN between the MAAS and the insula and negative correlations in the SN between the MAAS and the posterior cingulate cortex were also observed. These results suggest that MAAS scores (1) are correlated with the functional connectivity of several brain structures related to attention and (2) involve cross-network functional connectivity.