Neuroscience Seminar: The psychological and neural basis of incentive habits: relevance for our understanding of addiction

David Belin, PhD
Lecturer in Behavioural Neuroscience,
University of Cambridge

Drug addiction results from the interaction between a vulnerable individual, a drug and an environment which interactions and their contribution to the transition from volitional to compulsive drug seeking habits, the hallmark of addiction, are yet to be understood. However, over the last decade the development of novel preclinical models of addiction in rodents, factoring in the notion of inter-individual differences with the operationalisation of the main
clinical features of addiction in humans have helped shed a new light on the mechanisms subserving this inter-individual vulnerability to develop compulsive drug seeking habits. During this talk I will present novel insights into the psychological and neural basis of maladaptive incentive habits and discuss the nature of their contribution to addiction.