NO MORE DOUBT? –
Feb. 5, 2026 – The University of Cincinnati uses a novel artificial intelligence to predict substance use defining behaviors with up to 83% accuracy and 84% accuracy to predict the severity of the addiction. Researchers say this could allow clinicians to provide treatment faster to patients who need it. The clinical standard for psychiatry defines substance use disorder by four categories of destructive behaviors related to impaired control, physical dependence, social impairments and risky use irrespective of the substance being used. Successful prediction of these can help researchers understand the general processes defining addiction.
The study is one of the first of its kind to use a computational cognition framework with artificial intelligence to assess how human judgment can be used to predict substance use disorder defining behaviors, identify the substances used and determine the severity of the addiction.
“This is a new type of AI that can predict mental illness and commonly co-occurring conditions like addiction. It’s a low-cost first step for triage and assessment,” UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Professor Hans Breiter said.
