Addicted Brain, The: Why We Abuse Drugs, Alcohol, and Nicotine
- By Michael Kuhar
- Published Nov 2, 2011 by FT Press. Part of the FT Press Science series.
- Copyright 2012
- Dimensions: 6" x 9"
- Pages: 240
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-13-254250-1
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-254250-0
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Product Author Bios
Michael J. Kuhar (Atlanta, GA) is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pharmacology in the Emory University School of Medicine, and Chief of the Neuroscience Division at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory. Prior to coming to Emory, he was Chief of the Neuroscience Branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Professor of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has received numerous awards, and he is past president of the College of Problems on Drug Dependence, and is current president of the International Drug Abuse Research Society.
Addiction destroys lives. In The Addicted Brain, leading neuroscientist Michael Kuhar, Ph.D., explains how and why this happens–and presents advances in drug addiction treatment and prevention. Using breathtaking brain imagery and other research, Kuhar shows the powerful, long-term brain changes that drugs can cause, revealing why it can be so difficult for addicts to escape their grip.
Discover why some people are far more susceptible to addiction than others as the author illuminates striking neural similarities between drugs and other pleasures potentially capable of causing abuse or addiction–including alcohol, gambling, sex, caffeine, and even Internet overuse. Kuhar concludes by outlining the 12 characteristics most often associated with successful drug addiction treatment.
Authoritative and easy to understand, The Addicted Brain offers today’s most up-to-date scientific explanation of addiction–and what addicts, their families, and society can do about it.
URL for Online Supplement
http://www.Pearsoncustomlibrary.com/ISBN/0132542501
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Informative and Practical, By
This review is from: The Addicted Brain: Why We Abuse Drugs, Alcohol, and Nicotine (FT Press Science) (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I chose this book from the Amazon Vine program for a few reasons: I am a public defender who works with addicts (and recovering addicts) on a daily basis, and I recently lost a close friend to a drug overdose. I wanted to know more about how the brain functions after substance abuse, and this book did the job.Dr. Kuhar starts the book very slowly, in a steady "Hey kids, this is what a drug is, and this is what a neuron is" style, very appropriate for a junior high health class. The complexity of the topics discussed slowly increases as Dr. Kuhar begins to bring in more sophisticated topics, like the way that different types of drugs function and the various treatment methods available to patients. There are many examples from ethical animal testing (with a good disclaimer, right from the beginning, about how and why responsible scientists use animals in experiments), and Dr. Kuhar cites a wide variety of recent medical and scientific journals, so the book really feels... Read more
38 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Kind of basic, By
This review is from: The Addicted Brain: Why We Abuse Drugs, Alcohol, and Nicotine (FT Press Science) (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Maybe it's because I work in mental health, but I found much of the information in here to be fairly basic and well known. I was hoping for more in depth analysis--what are the long-term effects of drug use on cognition and processing? We know that drug use modifies brain chemistry--the changes that manifest themselves in the genes, are they passed down to the drug addict's offspring? What if the addict stops using--do the genes return to normal? Some of this was addressed in the book. We see a lot of adolescents who have smoked salvia or methamphetamines where I work--do the changes in their personalities and processing last a lifetime, if the person never does the drug again? How maleable is the brain? What about alcoholics? If they sober up and stay that way, can the brain recover? And how does this manifest itself in their day to day lives? I had a lot of questions (clearly) and wasn't satisfied with the depth of the answers the book provided. The author is obviously very...
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Brain Disease,
This review is from: The Addicted Brain: Why We Abuse Drugs, Alcohol, and Nicotine (FT Press Science) (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The Addicted Brain focuses on the physiological causes and results of addiction and explains why and how addiction is a brain disease using illustrations, Pet scan brain imaging and numerous research studies.Dr. Michael Kuhar is a scientist who explains addiction clearly, and at times charmingly to the layman; at one point he assures the reader that scientists who do research on animal subjects are sensitive to caring for the animals and `many have beloved pets at home'. At another point he says, "Wow," when talking about an accidental discovery that led to important research. But this is a serious book by an award winning scientist that clearly shows how drugs change and overwhelm the brain to produce long lasting changes that make it so difficult to stop using them. He also addresses vulnerabilities to addiction, citing studies about personality traits, social rank and status, genetics and early stressors, in which he cites his own research... Read more |
Online Sample Chapter
The Addicted Brain: What's in This Book, and Why Should I Read It?
Table of Contents
Introduction xi
Chapter 1: What’s in This Book, and Why Should I Read It? 1
Chapter 2: Hardwired: What Animals Tell Us About the Human Desire for Drugs 15
Chapter 3: Feeling Good: The Brain’s Own Reward System 29
Chapter 4: The ABCs of Drug Action in the Brain 39
Chapter 5: The Dark Side Develops! 59
Chapter 6: Why Are Drugs So Powerful? 73
Chapter 7: The Brain Is Changed—For a Long Time! 85
Chapter 8: Could I Become an Addict? 99
Chapter 9: Stress, Social Status, and Drugs 115
Chapter 10: Gambling, Sex, and Food 127
Chapter 11: What Else Do Drugs Do to Me? 137
Chapter 12: Women and Adolescents 159
Chapter 13: Treatment: How Do I Get Better? 171
Chapter 14: What Does the Future Hold? 189
Glossary 203
Index 211
Sample Pages
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