Elias Klemperer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychological Science at the UVM Larner College of Medicine, was recently featured on the University of Oxford’s Let’s Talk E-Cigarettes podcast. He discussed the new evidence in e-cigarette research and his recent randomized trial of nicotine replacement therapy, or NRT (patches and lozenges). The study found that NRT was effective in promoting early smoking cessation among young adult dual users. Their secondary findings indicated that pairing NRT with support to quit both products could enhance the effects on prolonged cigarette abstinence.

Contingency management (CM) for the treatment of individuals addicted to cocaine and methamphetamine is an approach that was developed at UVM in the early 1990s (Higgins et al, 1991). Over the next 30+ years, researchers at UVM, led by Steve Higgins, including Stacey Sigmon, Sarah Heil and many others have produced a body of research establishing CM as the only treatment with robust evidence for treating individuals with stimulant use disorder. Richard Rawson, PhD, details the expansion of the use of CM in the linked article from the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network.

Elias Klemperer, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Associate Director of the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health, and a UVM Cancer Center member, talks about his research, which earned him the prestigious 2025 Jarvik-Russell Early Career Award for extraordinary contributions to the field of nicotine and tobacco research. The award is from the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) -- the flagship professional organization for researchers in his field.

Love is more than a matter of the heart, according to research on the neurobiology of relationships, the roles of hormones in pair-bonding, and the effects of sensory information in partner selection. Science aside, five couples—Karena and Tin, Audree and Tanner, Chellie and Tyler, Jonathan and Marissa, and Delia and Tobey—share their stories of Love at Larner.

What do we mean when we refer to the humanities, especially with regard to the practice of medicine? Put simply, medical humanities focus on what it means, literally, to be human. To this end, physicians benefit from skilled attention to literature, poetry, philosophy, history, ethics, art, artistic performance, and even the social sciences.