This course is a research-based account of addiction, focused largely—but not exclusively—on drug addictions. The course provides a natural history of addiction, including the history of drug use, demographic correlates of addiction, addiction's time course, characteristics of drug using populations, basic drug pharmacology, and treatment strategies. The readings and lectures are built on the idea that, to understand addiction, one must understand the basic psychological and biological processes underpinning it, including how people make choices, how genes influence behavior, and how neurons work. The course draws on research in psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics.
(4 credits)
Spring term (22233)
Gene M. Heyman, PhD, Lecturer on Psychology, Harvard Medical School.
Verna L. Mims, ALM, Research Associate, McLean Hospital.
