Marcin
Wojnar, M.D., Ph.D. is a Research Fellow at the Center from
Fogarty International Training Program in Substance Abuse
Research. He is a psychiatrist, from Nowowiejski Psychiatric
Hospital and the Medical University of Warsaw, in Poland.
He has been working in the field of alcohol
addiction for the last 6 years. Dr. Wojnar's research interests
are focused mainly in area of the pathogenesis and clinical
course of alcohol dependence. He was involved in research
assessing different factors, especially somatic comorbidity,
concurrent drug abuse, intensity of drinking and other factors,
that can influence the severity and duration of alcohol
withdrawal (AW) syndrome, withdrawal seizures and delirium
tremens. In his PhD thesis he attempted to verify Ballenger
and Post's hypothesis of significance of the kindling mechanism
by evaluating the courses of consecutive AW episodes in
repeatedly treated patients. He also conducted a study that
evaluated differences between women and men in respect of
the course of alcohol abuse and its consequences.
Dr. Wojnar also took part in studies on
efficacy of loading-dose therapy with diazepam in the treatment
of alcohol withdrawal and delirium tremens. His latest interests
focused on age-related differences in the phenomenology
and course of alcoholism and alcohol withdrawal. Marcin
was also involved in a epidemiological survey in Poland
that assessed prevalence of depressive disorders in perimenopausal
women attending gynecologists as well as neurologists.
During his research fellowship, Dr. Wojnar
intends to study aspects of the comorbidity between alcohol
use disorders and depression. He is planning to focus on
predictive importance of suicidality as a possible marker
of early relapse to alcohol use after treatment of addiction.
