Course Description
Inhalants and Performance-Enhancing Substances: Clinical Considerations, Neurobiology, and Treatment Approaches is a self-paced professional training designed for clinicians who want to better understand how inhalants and performance-enhancing substances affect brain functioning, physical health, emotional regulation, client presentation, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning. Inhalants and performance-enhancing substances represent two distinct but clinically important substance categories that are often under-recognized, minimized, or misunderstood in behavioral health settings. Inhalants include commonly available household and industrial products that can produce rapid psychoactive effects when inhaled, while performance-enhancing substances may include anabolic steroids, stimulants, hormone-based agents, and related compounds used to improve appearance, endurance, strength, or performance. Participants will explore key neurobiological and physiological mechanisms associated with these substances, including central nervous system depression, hypoxia, neurotoxicity, dopamine reinforcement pathways, endocrine disruption, stimulant effects, cardiovascular strain, and changes in cognition, mood, judgment, and behavior. The training also addresses acute and long-term clinical effects, including intoxication, disorientation, impaired coordination, memory impairment, organ damage, sudden sniffing death, aggression, mood instability, anxiety, cardiovascular risk, reproductive dysfunction, and functional impairment. Clinical implications for assessment, differential diagnosis, psychoeducation, and treatment planning are emphasized throughout the course, particularly in the context of adolescent exposure, trauma history, body image concerns, competitive environments, polysubstance use, denial, minimization, and co-occurring mental health symptoms. Participants will also consider applied case examples to strengthen clinical decision-making, and planning.
Overview
Core Training Resource
.1 step
Assessment & Certification
.3 steps
