The Addictive Brain

Topic Better Living Subtopic Health & Wellness The Addictive Brain Course Guidebook Professor Thad A. Polk University of Michigan PUBLISHED BY: THE GREAT COURSES Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfields Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, Virginia 20151-2299 Phone: 1-800-832-2412 Fax: 703-378-3819 www.thegreatcourses.com Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2015 Printed in the United States of America This book is in copyright. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of The Teaching Company. Thad A. Polk, Ph.D. Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Psychology University of Michigan P rofessor Thad A. Polk is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He received a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Virginia and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Computer Science and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. He received postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan. Professor Polk’s research combines functional imaging of the human brain with computational modeling and behavioral methods to investigate the neural architecture underlying cognition. Some of his major projects have investigated differences in the brains of smokers who quit compared with those who do not, changes in the brain as we age, and contributions of nature versus nurture to neural organization. Professor Polk regularly collaborates with scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas and at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where he is a frequent visiting scientist. At the University of Michigan, he is a cochair of the Department of Psychology and the chair of the Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Boards. Professor Polk regularly teaches large lecture courses as well as small seminars on topics ranging from the human mind and brain, to cognitive psychology, to computational modeling of cognition. His teaching at the University of Michigan has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Excellence in Education Award from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship, the university’s highest undergraduate teaching award. He also was featured in the University of Michigan’s Professors Reaching Out for Students (PROFS) lecture series and was named to The Princeton Review’s list of the Best 300 Professors in WKH8QLWHG6WDWHVŶ i Table of Contents INTRODUCTION Professor Biography ............................................................................i Course Scope .....................................................................................1 LECTURE GUIDES LECTURE 1 Addiction 101 ......................................................................................3 LECTURE 2 The Psychology and Neuroscience of Reward................................. 11 LECTURE 3 How Addiction Hijacks the Brain .......................................................18 LECTURE 4 Genetics—Born to Be an Addict? .....................................................26 LECTURE 5 Your Brain on Drugs .........................................................................33 LECTURE 6 Why We Crave Coffee and Cigarettes .............................................40 LECTURE 7 Alcohol—Social Lubricant or Drug of Abuse?...................................48 LECTURE 8 The Science of Marijuana ............................................................