Drugs, Addiction, and the Brain

Drugs, Addiction, and the Brain explores the molecular, cellular, and neurocircuitry systems in the brain that are responsible for drug addiction. Common neurobiological elements are emphasized that provide novel insights into how the brain mediates the acute rewarding effects of drugs of abuse and how it changes during the transition from initial drug use to compulsive drug use and addiction. The book provides a detailed overview of the pathophysiology of the disease. The information provided will be useful for neuroscientists in the field of addiction, drug abuse treatment providers, and undergraduate and postgraduate students who are interested in learning the diverse effects of drugs of abuse on the brain.

Advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students taking an addiction course as part of a neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, biology or addiction medicine program

George F. Koob, Ph.D., received his Bachelor of Science degree from Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. in Behavioral Physiology from The Johns Hopkins University. He was recently appointed (in 2014) as Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (currently on a leave of absence as Professor at The Scripps Research Institute, Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, and Adjunct Professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego). As an authority on drug addiction and stress, he has contributed to our understanding of the neurocircuitry associated with the acute reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse and the neuroadaptations of the reward and stress circuits associated with the transition to dependence. Dr. Koob has published over 780 scientific papers. In collaboration with Dr. Michel Le Moal, he wrote the renowned book Neurobiology of Addiction (Elsevier, 2006). He was previously Director of the NIAAA Alcohol Research Center at The Scripps Research Institute, Consortium Coordinator for NIAAA's multi-center Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism, and Co-Director of the Pearson Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research. He has trained 75 postdoctoral fellows and 11 predoctoral fellows. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior and Senior Editor for Journal of Addiction Medicine. Dr. Koob taught for 35 years in the Psychology Department at the University of California San Diego, including courses such as Drugs Addiction and Mental Disorders and Impulse Control Disorders, courses that regularly matriculated 400-500 students each. He also taught Contemporary Topics in Central Nervous System Pharmacology at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UCSD for 9 years.

Dr. Koob's research interests have been directed at the neurobi

• Full-color circuitry diagrams of brain regions implicated in each stage of the addiction cycle
• Actual data figures from original sources illustrating key concepts and findings
• Introduction to basic neuropharmacology terms and concepts
• Introduction to numerous animal models used to study diverse aspects of drug use.
• Thorough review of extant work on the neurobiology of addiction