Breaking Bad: how drugs hijack the brain and the policies to stop it

How drugs teach the brain to want and eventually to need. In this talk, I will explore the cellular mechanism of drug reinforcement, and how dopamine plays a key role to hijack the reward system. We’ll examine what are the commonality of all drugs of abuse, and how dopamine shapes synaptic plasticity and drives the transition from voluntary drug use to compulsive behavior. By understanding the neurobiological mechanisms underlying reinforcement, learning, and craving, we will gain insight into the spiral of addiction.

Opioids like morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl are essential medicines that are critical to the medical care of patients suffering from certain types of pain, including cancer pain. Yet these important medicines are not available in the vast majority of the world. At the same time, we hear of the overuse of opioids leading to significant public health problems including deaths due to overdose. This session will explore the role that public health models have in bringing together different scientific and medical approaches to develop better policies that protect the health of individuals and communities and ensuring that medicines are made safely available.