"Comprehensive yet manageable, Mind, Brain, and Drug: An Introduction to Psychopharmacology serves as an excellent guide for students to this increasingly important field."--Jacket.

This book is the culmination of five years of debate among distinguished scholars in law, public policy, medicine, and biopsychology, about the most difficult questions in drug policy and the study of addictions. Do drug addicts have an illness, or is the addiction under their control? Should they be treated as patients or as criminals? Challenging the conventional wisdom, the authors show that these standard dichotomies are false.

A gripping, ultimately triumphant memoir that's also the most comprehensive and comprehensible study of the neuroscience of addiction written for the general public. FROM THE INTRODUCTION: "We are prone to a cycle of craving what we don't have, finding it, using it up or losing it, and then craving it all the more. This cycle is at the root of all addictions, addictions to drugs, sex, love, cigarettes, soap operas, wealth, and wisdom itself. But why should this be so? Why are we desperate for what we don't have, or can't have, often at great cost to what we do have, thereby risking our peace and contentment, our safety, and even our lives?" The answer, says Dr. Marc Lewis, lies in the structure and function of the human brain. Marc Lewis is a distinguished neuroscientist. And, for many years, he was a drug addict himself, dependent on a series of dangerous substances, from LSD to heroin. His narrative moves back and forth between the often dark, compellingly recounted story of his relationship with drugs and a revelatory analysis of what was going on in his brain. He shows how drugs speak to the brain - which is designed to seek rewards and soothe pain - in its own language. He shows in detail the neural mechanics of a variety of powerful drugs and of the onset of addiction, itself a distortion of normal perception. Dr. Lewis freed himself from addiction and ended up studying it. At the age of 30 he traded in his pharmaceutical supplies for the life of a graduate student, eventually becoming a professor of developmental psychology, and then of neuroscience - his field for the last 12 years. This is the story of his journey, seen from the inside out.

"The Addicted Brain" explains clearly and vividly what has been learned about how and why some people become addicted and abuse drugs or other substances, the relatively long-term changes these substances can make in the brain, and the progress being made on treatments.

Explore the brain and discover the clinical and pharmacological issues surrounding drug abuse and dependence. The authors, research scientists with years of experience in alcohol and drug studies, provide definitions, historic discoveries about the nervous system, and original, eye-catching illustrations to discuss the brain/behavior relationship, basic neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and the mechanistic actions of mood-altering drugs. You will learn about: * how psychoactive drugs affect cognition, behavior, and emotion * the brain/behavior relationship * the specific effects of major addictive and psychoactive drug groups * new definitions and thinking about abuse and dependence * the medical and forensic consequences of drugs use Drugs, the Brain, and Behavior uses a balance of instruction, illustrations, and tables and formulas that will give you a broad, lasting introduction to this intriguing subject. Whether you're a nurse, chemical dependency counselor, psychologist, or clinician, this book will be a quick reference guide long after the first reading.

For students old and new, Brain and Mind Made Simple makes sense of the brain, mind and consciousness. The book is packed with examples, patient histories and explanations, exploring for instance the strange case of Phineas Gage who survived brain injury but with a new personality. An expert, scientific and highly accessible guide. Most people know David Nutt as the UK’s sacked Drug Czar – ‘kicked out’ for speaking truth to power i.e. that UK policy on drugs and alcohol was not fit for purpose, driven by politics not science. But in a life outside politics Nutt is an academic, psychiatrist and researcher who studies the brain to help understand how it goes awry in mental and neurological illnesses. A few years ago, before Covid, he started giving public lectures explaining how the brain works and how alterations of the mind can occur as a result of changes in brain function. They were extremely popular — usually over 150 people at each — with lots of questions. So, he decided to write up the lectures in this book for the general public, and anyone else with an interest in the field, especially university students of psychology, medicine and neuroscience. As well as educating these groups, all royalties from Brain and Mind Made Simple will help support the charity Drug Science that David Nutt set-up after his sacking to continue to promote the cause of bringing scientific evidence to improve drug policy.