Neuroscience of Addiction
July 29 - August 5, 2025
Key Dates
Application Deadline: March 31, 2025
Arrival: July 29th by 6pm EST
Departure: August 5th around 12pm EST
The course will be held at the Laboratory's Banbury Conference Center located on the north shore of Long Island. All participants stay within walking distance of the Center. CSHL Courses are intensive, running all day and often including evenings and weekends; students are expected to attend all sessions and reside on campus for the duration of the course.
Instructors:
David Belin, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Christopher Evans, University of California, Los Angeles
Hedy Kober, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Mark Von Zastrow, University of California San Francisco
See the
roll of honor - who's taken the course in the past
Drug addiction is the most costly neuropsychiatric disorder faced by our nation. Acute and repeated exposure to drugs produces neuroadaptation and long-term memory of the experience, but the cellular and molecular processes involved are only partially understood.
The primary objective of the proposed course is to provide an intense dialogue of the fundamentals, state-of-the-art advances and major gaps in the cell and molecular biology of drug addiction. Targeted to new or experienced investigators, the course will combine formal presentations and informal discussions to convey the merits and excitement of cellular and molecular approaches to drug addiction research. With the advent of genomics and proteomics, an extraordinary opportunity now exists to develop comprehensive models of neuroadaptative processes fundamental to addiction, withdrawal, craving, relapse to drug use and general brain function.
A range of disciplines and topics will be represented, including:
- Noninvasive brain imaging to identify drug targets and adaptive processes
- Neuroadaptative processes at the molecular and cellular level
- Neural networks and their modulation
- Relevance of genotype to susceptibility and drug response
- Tolerance and adaptation at the cellular level
- Approaches to exploiting the daunting volume generated by neuroinformatics
This course will provide an integrated view of current and novel research on neuroadaptive responses to addiction, foster discussion on collaboration and integration, provide critical information needed to construct a model of addiction as a disease and novel molecular targets for biological treatments. Beyond the plane of scientific endeavor, the information is vital for formulating public policy and for enlightening the public on the neurobiological consequences of drug use and addiction.
This course is designed to generate interest in this level of analysis, open conduits for collaborations and present novel routes to investigating the neurobiology of addictive drugs.
Prior Year Invited Speakers:
Joseph Cheer, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Kelly Dunn, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Jacqueline-Marie Ferland, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY
Paul Kenny, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY
David Lovinger, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda,
Gavan McNally, The University of New South Wales, Kensington, United Kingdom
Flor Marisela Morales, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, MD
Jose Moron Concepcion, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO
James Otis, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC
Rohan Palmer, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Marina Picciotto, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Kate Wassum, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Funding for the course was made possible (in part) by 2 R13 DA019791-14 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Scholarship funds are available for partial support of tuition, room and board on a merit basis. Please apply in writing when you apply stating the need for financial aid.