The Center for Addictions, Personality, and Emotion Research (CAPER) within the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying the development and maintenance of addictive behaviors and their co-occurring psychological conditions, including mood, anxiety and personality disorders. To accomplish these cross-cutting goals, CAPER is comprised of a multidisciplinary team with expertise in the domains of clinical and counseling psychology, as well as social and decisional sciences.
CAPER also holds active collaborations with top local, national, and international research teams focused on the genetic and neurobehavioral underpinnings of addictive behaviors. As a result, CAPER supports state of the art bio-behavioral research with rigorous experimental designs. As a true translational research Center, CAPER also blends this basic process research with efforts to develop novel assessment and behavioral intervention approaches that work in real world community settings, from residential drug treatment centers for low income adolescents and adults to underserved international regions including Kurdistan Iraq.