Drug Addiction and Its Treatment

Part 1 Behavioural processes: drug reinforcement in animals; human drug self-administration; behavioural economics of drug consumption; measures of interoceptive stimulus effects; relationship to drug reinforcement; role of conditioned stimuli in addiction. Part 2 Neurobiological processes: neurobiologic basis for drug reinforcement; neuropharmacologic basis of tolerance and dependence; the behavioural genetics of addiction; search for biological markers; neurobehavioural abnormalities following exposure to drugs of abuse during development. Part 3 New horizons in neuroscience: topographic brain during drug-induced behaviours; structural and functional brain imaging; molecular cloning and characterization of receptors for drugs of abuse; substance abuse and gene expression; single and ensemble neuron spike train analysis in studies of drugs of abuse. Part 4 Treatment applications: applying learning and conditioning theory to the treatment of alcohol and cocaine abuse; clinical efficacy of pharmacotherapy; integrating behavioural and pharmacologic treatments; medicational aids to treat alcohol problems.