Sovereign Health's Chief Scientific Officer, Veena Kumari, Ph.D., Discusses the Relationship Between Nicotine Addiction and Mental Health in a New Television Interview

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Jan. 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sovereign Health, a national behavioral health system, announces a new television interview about nicotine addiction and its connection to mental health. The interview, featuring Sovereign Health's Chief Scientific Officer, Veena Kumari, Ph.D., an internationally renowned authority on cognitive neuroscience, was first broadcast live on the NBC affiliate KMIR's program "Desert Living" on Wednesday, Jan. 18.

"People with mental health disorders, such as schizophrenia, anxiety and depression, are about two to four times more likely to smoke and be dependent on nicotine," said Dr. Kumari. "People with a mental health disorder are less likely to succeed in their attempt to quit. Furthermore, even when they succeed at quitting, they're more likely to relapse, which usually occurs a few days after they've successfully quit smoking."

Dr. Kumari continues, "Nicotine, like heroin, has cognitive effects, and that may be one of the reasons why people with mental disorders are more likely to smoke and can find it harder to quit. People with schizophrenia smoke at a higher rate, take more nicotine and are more dependent because they're using it to self-medicate. And for that, they find it harder to quit."

As the Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Kumari represents a significant increase for Sovereign's leadership role in applying novel scientific and technical advances to improve addiction and mental health treatment. Dr. Kumari is an undisputed leader in the psychiatric and neuroscience research fields. Dr. Kumari has made significant contributions to the fields of neuroscience of personality and sex differences; cognitive psychopharmacology; information processing deficits in schizophrenia and their pharmacological normalization; neurobiology of cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis; and neurobiology of violence in schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder.

Dr. Kumari has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals on measures such as electromyography, electroencephalography, neuropsychology, structural and functional neuroimaging and genetics. She has over 250 publications in reputable psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience journals, with a current H index of 60 and over 11,000 cumulative citations.

Sovereign Health operates nine treatment facilities in five states: California, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah. The facilities are licensed and have been awarded Gold Seal accreditation by The Joint Commission, the highest level of accreditation available in the behavioral health field. "Desert Living" is a 30-minute TV program broadcast from Palm Springs in the desert's Coachella Valley.

About Sovereign Health

Sovereign Health's mission is to provide a broad spectrum of high-quality behavioral health treatment services for adults and adolescents, including support services for family members. One factor that differentiates Sovereign from other treatment providers has been the company's ability to offer separate mental health and addiction or dual diagnosis treatment programs at its facilities. For more information, visit www.sovhealth.com.

SOURCE Sovereign Health

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