Mapping Brain Highways to Stop Substance Use Disorders

Published: Monday, July 15, 2024

Scientists have known for a long time that a part of the brain called the amygdala is involved in both feelings of fear and reward, which may explain why it also appears to play a role in substance use disorders that make it hard to stop using alcohol and other drugs. Aslaan Siddiqi, a postbaccalaureate research fellow in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health, is studying how the amygdala might boost the sense of reward and minimize the perception of risk related to using those health-damaging substances. By doing so, he and his labmates hope to discover a way to correct the skewed balance between risk and reward that contributes to substance use disorders.

Click here to learn more about the research being done in Aslaan’s lab.

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