Skip to 0 minutes and 8 seconds Can I ask you three questions? How does a like become a love? How does a taste become a need? How does desire become compulsion? We are all touched in some way by addiction whether personally, socially within our circle of family and friends, or within our community. Addiction, and its related harms, can be crippling for those affected, and for the people around them. But how does addiction develop? What can we do to treat it? And what can we do to prevent it? In this course we explore how addiction develops. We look at the risks in the environment,
Skip to 0 minutes and 50 seconds in our personalities, in our genes: we look at the risks for developing addiction. We examine what happens when a drug enters you body and your brain, and how the reward centre of your brain becomes activated. We look at how your brain changes in response to drugs. And we look at how this process can make recovering from addiction such a challenge.
Skip to 1 minute and 20 seconds Our team will describe how we can best treat addiction, and how governments, nationally and internationally, can help limit the harms from addiction. King’s College London are world leaders in the science and treatment of addiction. Lecturers on this course are drawn from a variety of disciplines thoughout King’s College; a team who work together to understand and respond to addiction. Each week our teaching is supplemented by some of the world’s leading scientists who will present their own cutting edge neuroscientific research into addiction, research that will lead to a greater understanding of how addiction develops and how we can treat it most effectively. By understanding addiction, we can shed light on the greater issues of self control and choice.
Skip to 2 minutes and 17 seconds Indeed, by understanding addiction, we can develop a greater understanding of ourselves. My name is Dr Kyle Dyer, I’m a psychopharmacologist at King’s College London and, on behalf of the team, I look forward to meeting you on our course.
