Question: How close do you think you are to discovering why drugs are addictive?

Emma Cahill answered on 12 Nov 2013:

Hi there!, my own work gives information that we didn’t know before on what gets activated by cocaine in the brain. Other scientists have studied addiction now for years and years, and we are definitely getting somewhere. We have come to understand that addictive drugs like cocaine or alcohol, although they are different chemically, all act in similar ways on the brain. They all trick our brain circuits that usually are activated when we doing something good for us, like eat food for example. These brain circuits are there so we can learn what we did to get the reward. But drugs do this in a way more strong way, so the next time we see something that reminds us of when we had the drug it causes the “craving” sensation. I hope we will be able to find a way to stop this craving in the future, perhaps by preventing these circuits being activated, so people can stop taking drugs when they don’t want to anymore.