Neuroscience of Addictive Behaviour

Description

Modern neuroscience research has characterised addiction as a disease of the brain. The delineation of brain pathways and molecular mechanisms responsible for compulsive drug abuse and addiction complements the traditional approach to addiction taken in psychology. This course is aimed to (i) helping the students understand the ultimate biological causes of addiction and its associated biobehavioural processes (e.g., conditioning, habit learning, motivation, reward, reinforcement), (ii) become familiar with research in animals models of drug addiction, (iii) encourage learning about the psychopharmacology of different classes of drug, and (iv) integrate research on human abuse and addiction patterns with current knowledge at three levels: neurocircuitry (neuropsychopharmacology), cellular (physiology) and molecular (genetic and molecular substrates).